


Nevertheless

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [6]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Aftermath, Aftermath of a Case, Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Humor, Banter, Bets & Wagers, Consent, Cunnilingus, Dominance, Drinking Games, Enthusiastic Consent, Exhibitionism, Explicit Consent, F/M, Fellatio, Fruit, Games, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Humour, Implied Masturbation, Intimidation, Kissing, Lube, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Multiple Orgasms, Multiple Partners, Multiple Sex Positions, Mythology References, Never Have I Ever, Nuns, Penis In Vagina Sex, Poetry, Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Public Display of Affection, Revelations, Rimming, Secrets, Slow Build, Sonnets, Spit As Lube, Storytelling, Swearing, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, Trust, Truth or Dare, Undressing, Vaginal Fingering, Vegetables, Voyeurism, ave et atque, lux et umbra sed semper amor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-17 13:30:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14189991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: The long summer is over, a monster has been defeated, our heroes have done their duty, and the rewards of their faithfulness are beckoningjustover the horizon (with still a few miles to go before they sleep).But even the most dedicated warriors need to kick back, and where better than the garrison mess with a jug or two and some fun and games…?





	1. Introit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the requisite elements are gathered to make a start.

> You take my flesh in hand and start to score,  
>  You press with gentle force to mark a seam.  
>  You know the path, you’ve traced its route before;  
>  My armour guards a softness, lush as dreams.
> 
> This task takes patience, time, and outright skill;  
>  First layer gone and now the harder part:  
>  A thin, tight membrane keeps you from your fill,  
>  So lift the bitter, taste my sweeter heart.
> 
> The air sings, tart-sweet, beckoning your tongue,  
>  And busy fingers blush, juice running free;  
>  Impediments are done, the feast’s begun -  
>  My core surrendered, you devouring me.
> 
> The fresh scent lingers, memories kept real;  
>  Ripe flesh is worth the challenge of the peel.

 

“What is that… cacophony?” He sits as silently as he arrived.

Aramis sighs the sigh of the poet - never appreciated by his brutish fellows - but tells Athos, mildly enough: “It’s a sonnet. It probably works better in English.”

“It’s a translation, then?” Porthos clatters a chair down to his right and sits with a great huff of breath. Aramis moves his candle reflexively away, closer to the wall.

“No - it’s in the form the English use: abab, cdcd… and oh, you really don’t care.”

“Not much.”

“Let’s have it again?” says Athos, circling a gloved forefinger.

Aramis takes a deep breath and delivers it deliberately, with relish.

There is a short silence. D’Artagnan has arrived and is sitting on a backwards chair next to Athos, candle lantern hung on a hook above them, arm laid across the top of the back of the chair, chin on his arm. He stirs and says: “Hmm.”

“Hmm?” asks Aramis.

“It’s a riddle, yes?”

“Why not?”

“Hungry, were you?” smirks Porthos.

Aramis smiles that soft smile that manages, somehow, to be both musingly distant and flatteringly present, that’s caused a lot of people to turn abruptly thoughtful in the past.

“You’ve said ‘sweet’ twice there,” says Athos into the silence.

“What?”

“‘Sweeter heart’ and ‘tart-sweet’.”

“Well,” says Aramis, rather sharper, folding the parchment into quarters, “let’s just hope that no-one _else_ notices, because I’m damned if I know what else says that in two syllables.” He sighs, smiles again, Apollo in dusty grey leathers.

“Does poetry have to rhyme,” asks d’Artagnan, “to make it poetry?”

“Hmm. Not necessarily. But traditionally, yes.”

“So, if you want to write poetry to a girl,” says Porthos, “better not go with one whose eyes are black…”

“Or brown?” adds d’Artagnan, a smile quivering on him. “No good rhymes there.”

“Better blue?” asks Aramis with a lazy smile below surprisingly sharp eyes. “Or grey?”

D’Artagnan darts a look at Athos, “I’ll take your best judgement on that. You’re the poet.”

“What about green?” asks Athos, and d’Artagnan’s smile dies.

“Verily,” says Aramis, airly, “too many to choose from.”

“Hmm,” says Athos, then heaves a sigh. They sit, silently.

“Since we’re all here,” says Porthos, with a sly lift of his moustaches and a rubbing of hands, “and none of us dead, exiled, outlawed, broken on the rack, or in prison, how about a game of something?”

“I am not,” says Athos, crisply, face impassive “playing cards with _you_.”

“What if I promise not to cheat?”

Athos’s eyes narrow. “What if we strip you down to ensure you’ve got nothing secreted on your person before we start?”

“It’s a cold old evening. You wouldn’t be seeing me at my best.”

“Nevertheless,” he says, “I don’t gamble - remember?”

Porthos sighs. “I remember.”

“We don’t have to gamble,” says d’Artagnan, “we could just play cards…”

“I believe our brother is not inclined to that suggestion,” murmurs Aramis, eyes lost to the shade of his hat.

“It’s like drinking grape juice and calling it wine. Or going to bed with a woman who won’t touch your…”

“Right,” says Aramis swiftly.

“Ah,” says d’Artagnan. “Well, in that case…”

“We could…” says Porthos, sly as a heron, “spend our time giving our best advice to our young brother here on the eve of his nuptials, so to speak.” He claps him on the back and his teeth rattle as his chin hits the chair’s back.

“Ow. And no.”

“Sit properly,” murmurs Athos, and he immediately rises to turn the chair and then slouch back in it.

Aramis raises an eyebrow to Porthos, who rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

“Well then,” says Porthos, “if we’re not here to play cards or bestow wisdom, what are we doing skulking in the garrison mess?”

D’Artagnan smiles a long, but rueful smile. “For my part, I figured Constance would be busy with the Queen.” He and Athos share a brief side-glance.

“Commendable charity,” approves Aramis. “She shouldn’t be alone now.”

“She has her _husband_ ,” says Porthos, meaningfully, “the _King_.”

Aramis just sighs, eyebrows up in the middle, like: _I know, I know_ …

“If we can’t play cards,” says d’Artagnan, with another side-glance to Athos, “surely there are other games we can play?” Porthos draws breath. “ _That aren’t_ wedding bed advice from you three.”

“We could,” says Porthos, “Just get really, _really_ drunk…”

“We’ll be talking to the King tomorrow morning, grand regalia and all,” Aramis reminds him.

“Draughts?”

“We lost about half the pieces, if you remember, and watching you play is like watching…” he waves his arms, emptily, “something akin to… a, a terrible thing…” he finishes, somewhat clumsily.

“Ran out of metaphors on the orange thing, didja?”

“It would appear so…”

“Simile?” asks Athos.

“Oh, God in Heaven,” groans Aramis, hands over his face. Porthos throws a small piece of breadcrust at him.

“Ooh, is that bread?” asks d’Artagnan.

“Yep. Here. Keep your strength up - you’ll need it!”

“What happened to the draught pieces?” asks d’Artagnan, tearing bread.

“Shooting competition,” says Aramis, languidly. “You were… otherwise engaged, I think.”

Athos stirs in his chair. “So getting drunk or humiliating d’Artagnan are our main choices?”

D’Artagnan says, thickly: “You’ll only humiliate yourselves.”

“Hah!” say Porthos and Aramis together.

D’Artagnan just grins, cheeks bulging.

“Drinking game?” suggests Porthos. “It has both elements.”

“That’s quite neat,” agrees Aramis.

“No firearms, though,” says Athos, hurriedly.

“Nah,” says Porthos. “Oddly, lost my taste for that, somewhat.”

“Hmm,” says everyone else.

They start to run through the drinking games they know, and it quickly becomes clear that they tend to rely on cards (already mooted), dice (swiftly dismissed for similar reasons), watching performers (no-one has funds or inclination to seek them out), or taking their clothes off (hmm).

“How about ‘I Have Never’?” suggests Aramis.

“Remind me?” says Athos.

“You say something you’ve never done. Anyone in the game who has, drinks.”

“What if no-one has?” asks d’Artagnan.

“Er, the instigator drinks instead?”

“Well, that’s the rule now,” says Porthos, with a grin. “I like it. We on?”

A slanted grin grows over d’Artagnan. “With how well we know each other…?”

“That’s part of the point.”

He darts another look at Athos. “Well…”

“Why not?” says the other.

“All right!” says Porthos. “Grab yourself a drink, brothers, and let’s get cracking!”


	2. Kyrie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the rules are expanded upon, perforce, and some surprising facts are learned.

They find themselves bottles and jugs, pass out cups, light a couple more candles, reseat themselves, look around expectantly. Then Porthos rises again and pokes the fire into life behind him, adding a couple of extra pieces of wood. They all look at each other again.

“Well,” drawls Athos, ankle over one knee, “does it start with a staring competition, or…?”

“All right, sunshine,” growls Porthos, “since we’re doing this for the sake of your _niceness_ about cards”

“And yours.”

“Fine. Anyway, you should start us off.”

“Fine,” he says, face a study in neutrality. “I have never lost a wager.”

“You’ve never _made_ a wager.”

“Want to bet?”

“Hah,” says Aramis.

“Can’t be proved. Disallowed!” Porthos is somewhere between scowl and smirk.

“You’re the Rulekeeper now?”

“No. Yes…? Yes.”

“All right then - I have never… accidentally set myself on fire when staking out a…”

“ _Aauugh!_ ”

D’Artagnan chokes. “Seriously?!”

“Seriously,” says Athos, seriously.

“Drink up, old man,” says Aramis. Porthos drinks, glowering. “Which way are we going?”

“Clockwise, obviously,” he says, wiping his moustache.

“Your turn,” says Athos softly to d’Artagnan.

“Oh? Oh, well, er.”

“There must be _loads!_ ” says Porthos. “Young country lad like you…”

“You’d be surprised…”

“Surprise me.”

He smiles, very softly, head down. “I have never written a love letter,” then looks up through his hair.

Aramis drinks immediately, the others more slowly.

“See?” he says to Porthos.

“Right…”

“Your turn.”

Porthos sniffs. “I have never written a love poem.”

Aramis groans lightly and drinks. So does Athos.

“Seriously?!” D’Artagnan’s face is alight with several emotions.

Athos’s eyes narrow. He is looking off into the distance. “He didn’t specify ‘good’.”

The others variously nod gently and chuckle.

He is thinking of the scratch of pen on parchment, the trepidation in the throat, the way you imagine lips moving over lines, the way you hope they’ll strike to the heart of yourself and send an echo to the other’s breast.

He is thinking of the past, and how it holds you, chains you to someone you used to be, talks of who you used to aspire to be, of how there is only forward into the light.

And he is thinking of offers made in the dark.

“I have never,” says Aramis, softly, “reneged on a promise.”

Melancholy, Athos and d’Artagnan both drink. Athos quirks a look at his companion. “Milady,” the other explains, half muttering. “I offered to…”

“Oi!” says Porthos. “No explanations sought.”

“Or offered?” he asks.

“That’s slightly different. But arguably another game.”

D’Artagnan nods, raises his cup to Porthos.

“All right,” says the Rulekeeper, “charge your vessels again, brothers, it’s time for another round.”

 _Slosh, clugn-clugn, clink._ “I have never,” says Athos, “ridden a cow.”

Porthos and d’Artagnan drink, the latter grinning. He says: “I have never fallen off a cow.” 

The others roar as, with bad grace, Porthos drinks.

“Good guess,” says Athos. D’Artagnan smirks.

“I have never ridden a goat,” says Porthos. D’Artagnan drinks.

“The winter evenings must fly by in Gascony,” remarks Athos. D’Artagnan shakes his head, smiling softly.

“I have never ridden a unicorn,” says Aramis, dreamily.

Porthos scowls suspiciously. “Is that a metaphor?”

“I thought you said no questions,” says d’Artagnan.

“I think we should be allowed questions _before_ responding - for clarification,” says Athos. “Well?” he says to Porthos.

“Well?”

“You’re the Rulekeeper.”

“Damn. Right.” He looks up at the ceiling and back down. “Yeah - definitely, if you need to know if it applies to you.” He points at Aramis. “So, was that a metaphor?”

“For what?”

“Well, er,” he scratches his beard. “You know - taking a girl’s, er, being her first, like.”

“No,” says Aramis. “It wasn’t a metaphor.”

“So you just wanted a drink,” says d’Artagnan.

“Right.” The poet drinks. “Next?”

“If that is the established metaphor,” says Athos, nodding to Porthos, “then I have never ridden a unicorn.”

Aramis drinks, a look of abstracted sadness on his face. More sheepishly, so does d’Artagnan. Porthos roars delightedly and smacks his upper arm with the back of his hand.

“Ow. I have never passed out due to alcohol consumption.”

“‘Alcohol consumption’? You’ve been hanging around with the wrong class of person, my son,” says Porthos. D’Artagnan stares at him, eyebrows high. “Fuck it,” he says, and drinks. Athos and Aramis do likewise.

“I have never told a lie in confession,” he says, after a moment’s thought.

Aramis narrows his eyes. “As in confession to a priest or…?”

“Confession to a priest.”

“Oh.”

Athos drinks. Everyone looks slightly embarrassed.

“This is a dangerous game,” murmurs Aramis.

“Your turn,” says Porthos.

“I’m thinking.”

“Think faster.”

“Really.”

“Really.”

“This would go faster if you weren’t telling me to go faster.”

“That’s what she said,” says Athos.

They gape at him for a moment before he gives his sidelong smile and they all laugh.

Sniffing and smirking, Porthos turns to Aramis. “You still haven’t…”

“ _I’m thinking!_ ”

“New rule!” cries Porthos. “If you can’t think of anything fast enough, you have to drink!”

“Define ‘fast enough’,” demands Athos.

“No,” says Porthos. “Rulekeeper’s discretion.” 

“Hell, no!” exclaims Athos, with the others chiming in with support.

Porthos scowls. “What do you suggest?”

“The Timekeeper is someone else.” 

“Right. You,” he says to d’Artagnan. 

“Me?” fingers bunched on his chest.

“You.”

D’Artagnan shrugs. “Half a minute all right?”

The others make a variety of noises around “Yeah,” and “Fair enough,” and “Suppose so.”

He turns to Athos. “May I borrow your watch?” 

Athos fishes it out. “Take care of…”

“I know,” he says, softly. Athos places it directly in his palm, letting the chain puddle slowly after. D’Artagnan stays still, looking down into his palm. Anyone paying close attention might see his pulse speeding, colour leaping in his throat, his eyes blinking a rapid rhythm.

He looks up on an in-breath, nods and smiles at Athos, eyes bright, raises his eyebrows at the rest, looks at the watch held secure in his palm. “Thought of one yet?”

“No…” says Aramis, resignedly, lifting his cup to hoots from the rest.

“Recharge your vessels, monsieurs!” exclaims the Rulekeeper.

D’Artagnan leans to Athos, whose nostrils flare once, twice. “Are you going to be all right?” he asks him.

He bends forward to reach under his chair for the flask. “You worry too much,” he murmurs to d’Artagnan’s thigh.

“Maybe, but…”

“It’s ale.”

“All right.”

He shakes his head on a smile, sees d’Artagnan’s expression clear, feels a stab of something vital striking through him all over again, looks away quickly, feeling, yet again, Aramis’s quiet eyes on him.

_Slosh, clugn-clugn, clink._

And, despite everything the last few days have brought them, he’s remembering the last time he was even close to drunk around d’Artagnan, the secrets breached, the silence broken, the gentler desires summoned by small, soft, brutal words. He can feel his pulse speeding, closes his eyes for a moment, breathes deliberately slowly, deeply.

“Oi!” comes Porthos’s voice. “Your turn, Athos, or are you forfeiting?”

“No,” he says, “no. Just feeling my age for a moment.”

“You need to go sleep the week off, grandfather?”

“I’ll outlast you, son,” he retorts, “and I’ve never fallen off a wall while drunk.”

Porthos grunts and drinks. “That’s because you’re a very boring drunk.”

“No matter of that,” says Athos. “It’s the Timekeeper’s turn.”

“I have never stolen anything… when I wasn’t on a mission.”

“Clever,” approves Porthos, as he and Aramis drink. He peers at Athos. “You all right there?”

He is resting his cup against his chin. His mouth is scrunched to one side. “I can’t remember,” he admits. “It seems unlikely, though.”

“Then it doesn’t count. Don’t worry about it,” waves the Rulekeeper, affably.

“There’s a point,” says Aramis. “Can we remind people if they’ve not drunk?”

“Ooooh. _Yes_.”

Athos groans softly. “I’m in so much trouble.”

“Yes,” says d’Artagnan, and they chorus: “you are.”

“Damn all of you.”

“Probably,” says Porthos cheerfully. “Ooh, my turn.”

D’Artagnan looks pointedly at his watch-laden palm.

“I… have… never… fucked any kind of fruit.”

Laughter explodes across the kitchen.

“Who…” asks Aramis, wiping his eyes, “were you hoping to snare with _that…?!_ ”

“No-one,” says Porthos earnestly. “I was just thinking about those melons I used to shoot and taking it to the next… place…” He swigs. Aramis loses it again.

D’Artagnan’s face is screwed up in merriment. “Your next logical step was _fucking a melon?!_ ”

Porthos shrugs, losing the battle to keep his face impassive. “You know - hard surface, squishy inside…”

“You’ve gone wrong,” chokes d’Artagnan. He turns to Athos who abruptly stops laughing, holds his still-gloved finger up for _quiet, wait_. Aramis is still making weak little squeaks of laughter, which fade out into the silence, broken by the crackle of the fire and… footsteps.

“Hello?” calls d’Artagnan. Everyone glares at him. He frowns back lightly. “Don’t worry - it’s…”

“Hello?” comes a light voice. Athos’s eyes widen. Porthos’s and Aramis’s heads tilt to one side in synchrony, for all the world like puzzled hounds.

Light from a swinging candle lantern scatters across the flags through the mess door. The steps become louder, distinctive and the light grows to reveal a familiar figure coming slowly through the doorway.

“Hello,” she says, looking around.


	3. Gloria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a new element is added, surprises are in store, and tactics start to make themselves apparent.

“Er, I don’t want to be rude,” says Porthos.

“Sure about that, are you?”

He clears his throat. “I don’t, but: what are you doing here?”

“Couldn’t sleep, and I figured you idiots would still be up, so here I am.”

D’Artagnan is on his feet. Athos is still in his chair, but rises too, slower, placing his cup on a nearby table.

“This is a pretty welcome,” she says, pertly.

“Sorry,” murmurs d’Artagnan and, with a smile, crosses the mess to take her in his arms. They kiss. The others watch, look at each other, look down.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” says Constance. She shoos d’Artagnan back to his seat and steps closer to the group.

“Everything all right at the Palace?” asks Aramis, softly.

“Yes,” she says, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

“And she’s…”

“I left her sleeping,” she replies, with a small smile, opening her eyes. Athos stays looking emphatically at her, and d’Artagnan, whose eyes went wide briefly, is busy summoning a smile for her, eyes slightly narrowed.

“Good, good,” says Aramis, “she needs her rest.”

“That she does,” says Porthos in a _that’s the last we’re hearing of this, right?!_ voice.

Aramis leans towards him and gestures expansively to Constance. “Draw up a chair!”

“Thanks!” says Constance, with a slightly ironic expression, pulling one up to close the circle between him and Athos, putting her lantern on the table to her left and extinguishing it. “What are we playing?”

“I Have Never.”

“Have you not?”

“Name of the game.”

She grins to let him know she understood. “All right, what are we drinking?”

Athos says, with a lift of his eyebrows: “Whatever we can get our hands on.”

“Right,” she says briskly, “I’ll have some of that.” She grabs a jug that’s next to Porthos’s feet and stands on her tiptoes to fetch a cup from the shelf above Aramis. “How do we play?”

“You’re playing?” asks Athos.

“Why not - got nothing better to do tonight, have I?”

D’Artagnan’s face combines humour and rue in delicious quantities.

“Might have known you wouldn’t be the type to just watch, Constance,” says Porthos with a dance of eyebrows

“Get on with it,” says Athos.

“Here,” says Porthos, “isn’t it bad luck to see the bride before…?”

“I think,” says Athos, carefully, “that only counts if she’s in her bridalwear.”

“And I hope she’s not wearing _that_ ,” says d’Artagnan.

“I like the breeches. I might wear them more often.” She stretches her legs out in front of her, crossed at the ankle.

D’Artagnan’s face is a picture, mostly composed of delight. Porthos whacks him in the chest. “Ow!”

“Pay attention.”

“Is this the game we’re playing?” asks Aramis. “Because I could easily write another…”

“Right!” says Porthos, hurriedly, “Constance, short version: we each have to say something that we _haven’t_ done, and anyone who _has_ done it, drinks.”

“Sounds familiar,” she smirks.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. And what’s the aim of the game?”

“To… be… less drunk?” says Porthos.

“I thought it was _more_ drunk,” says Aramis.

“It’s a drinking game,” he replies. ”To be quite honest, it’s not exactly brimming with tactics and strategems.”

“Weeell…” says Aramis.

“What?”

“I’ll leave it there, I think.”

“Good job.” Porthos claps his hands. “Right, who’s next?”

Aramis sighs. “It’s me.”

“Time?” barks Porthos at d’Artagnan.

“Oh, come on,” says he.

“I have never… fallen off my horse because I was too drunk to ride.” says Aramis smoothly.

Porthos and Athos both drink. The others snigger. Porthos points at Constance, who nods.

“I have never… fallen off a horse at all.”

The rest of them drink, with varied quantities and qualities of rue.

“I thought you jumped off…” says Athos to d’Artagnan.

“Haha.” He cocks an eye at Constance. “Is that because you’ve never been on a horse by yourself at all?”

“I…”

“Here!” barks Porthos. “No questions, remember? That’s the rules.”

“Right, right…” D’Artagnan holds up his hands.

“There’s other rules?” asks Constance.

“Ask the Rulekeeper,” drawls Athos, gesturing to Porthos.

“Ah?” She raises her eyebrows at Porthos, who scowls at Athos.

“You _literally_ brought this on yourself.”

“ _Ahh_ ,” he swipes the notion away. “Yeah,” he says, turning to Constance. “Yeah, if you pick one no-one’s done, you drink yourself. You can’t take too long”

“Half a minute,” interjects d’Artagnan.

“Yeah. And no questioning, unless… er”

“Clarification,” says Aramis quietly.

“Yeah. You can ask for people to expand on their, er, confession to check if, er, if you’re affected.”

“Right,” she says, eyes sparkling and one dimple deeper than the other.

“I’ve never been to Ireland,” says Athos.

Aramis and Porthos drink, slowly.

“What was it like?” asks d’Artagnan.

“Wet,” says Aramis.

“Cold,” says Porthos.

“All the women had red-gold hair,” says Aramis, voice dreaming.

“And arms like bolsters,” adds Porthos.

“Soft, white, fragrant,” says the poet.

“And surprisingly strong.”

“The countryside was remarkably pleasant.”

“And the food was…”

“Better than English food.”

“Wouldn’t be hard,” says Athos. “Feh.” His eyes are lost somewhere as he says this.

“I have never been to England,” says d’Artagnan.

The other Musketeers all drink.

“So you _can_ ask questions,” says Constance.

“Yeah, all right,” says Porthos gruffly, “but not for, you know, an explanation.”

“Ah, so if I wanted to know _why_ you were in Ireland, I’d wait my turn and say ‘I’ve never been to Ireland on a secret mission for the Crown,’ for example.”

“Sort of thing, yeah,” he says, slowly.

“Any topics we should avoid?”

He appears to think about this deeply. “I’d say: ‘don’t get into anything you don’t want the answer to’,” comes after a while.

She grins at him. “I believe it’s your turn.”

“Bollocks. Sorry!” She waves it off. “Er, all right,” he grins at her, wicked. “I have never kissed a draper.”

The others make various sounds of disapproval. Constance flattens her lips and shakes her head. She lifts her cup, keeping eye contact with Porthos.

“Hold on,” says d’Artagnan.

“Yes,” says Aramis.

“How are we defining kissing here?”

“Eh?” says Porthos. “Obvious, innit?”

“No,” he says, while Aramis says: “Not so.”

He looks between them. “How so?”

“What about kissing hands?”

“What about it?”

“There are female drapers. I may have kissed the hand of one,” says Aramis.

“Really.”

“And if one were my good friend…” says d’Artagnan.

“Or cousin,” says Athos.

He turns to him. “Exactly. Cousins - you’d kiss… cheeks.” He gestures to either side of Athos’s face, his own starting to flame. He catches Constance’s eyes as he looks back around the group. Her eyes are bright above the cup. He clears his throat, untwists in his chair, gestures towards Porthos. “So, Rulekeeper,” he declaims, “how are we defining kissing?”

Porthos looks at Aramis, who is refilling his cup, leant back in the chair. The poet shrugs a shoulder. “In order for it to make sense for us to be making such a statement in such a game…”

“On the mouth,” says the Rulekeeper, decisively. “Mutually.”

“No Zellandine,” says Aramis.

“No Chione,” says Athos.

Everyone else frowns around the circle and shrugs.

Athos’s face carries a moue of distaste. “They should be awake and receptive.”

“Yeah,” says Porthos, impatiently. “I said ‘mutually’.”

“Right.”

“So?” says Porthos. Constance crosses her eyes at him and drinks.

“I have never kissed a nun,” says Aramis.

The others make _ah-aaah_ noises. Constance and d’Artagnan search the round for enlightenment.

“Except… for the time you did…?” reminds Athos, eyebrows raised.

“Damn. Sorry, Constance.”

“Can we not… Look, just swear, please.”

Porthos grins. “You’re bloody well on, Constance.” He looks at d’Artagnan. “Time?”

“Oh! I hadn’t started yet.”

“Well, start.” He waves a finger at Aramis, who seems deep in thought. “Come on!”

“Aaah, I… have never… kissed… a grocer!”

The others snigger. Porthos shakes his head.

Aramis sighs. “I’ve still got to drink, haven’t I?”

“Yep. Constance?”

“I have never kissed a… cousin.”

She looks around at the quiet circle. Everyone is clearly busy conning a list of cousins and people they’ve kissed, except Porthos, who shrugs at her, and Athos, who gives her a very sour look and drinks.

“Oops,” she says.

“Nobility, eh?” sighs Porthos, when it’s clear that no-one else is going to drink, though d’Artagnan is still frowning upwards over something. “Right then, gentle… folk… charge your cups.” He waves that Constance can have first take from the jug they’re sharing. She nods and pours, then passes it over.

_Slosh, clugn-clugn, clink._

Athos narrows his eyes and says “I have never… kissed someone of royal blood.”

Aramis drinks. Porthos and d’Artagnan make resigned faces, with d’Artagnan giving Athos a disapproving side-glance and shaking his head.

Constance drinks. Aramis chokes on his wine, then dodges Porthos’s hand reaching to slap him. Everyone’s eyes are on Constance, though the facial expressions are markedly different between the sides of the circle. She gives everyone an impartial, bright, verging on artificial grin and says: “I believe it’s my fiancé’s turn…?”

D’Artagnan flattens his lips and his eyes briefly at her, shaking his head slightly, then says “I’ve, er, never made a weapon.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” says Porthos.

“Yes,” says Aramis, “I’m assuming you’re meaning _crafting_ a weapon as opposed to _improvising_ a weapon.”

“Oh, er. Yes. That.”

“Right.” Porthos drinks. Athos drinks. Aramis looks thoughtful. “I’ve adapted a musket to my own design - does that count…?”

“Oooh,” says d’Artagnan.

“Nah,” says Porthos, “I don’t reckon it does.”

Aramis shrugs and puts his cup down. “Your turn,” he says.

“I’ve never been to bed with a nun.”

“For _fuck’s_ sake!” explodes Aramis. He folds his arms.

“Aha!” says Porthos, emerging from a deep draught with a massive grin.

“I’ve never attended a funeral in order to bed the deceased’s widow.”

“ _Aauugh!_ ”

“Drink up,” advises d’Artagnan, as Porthos’s features suffuse with an unpleasant colour.

“I told you this was a dangerous game,” says Aramis.

“I have never gone to bed with anyone of a _lower_ social class than myself,” says Constance, very obviously not looking at Athos.

“Ooooh,” says Porthos, nodding his approval. Looking around, it’s clear that only Athos and Aramis are drinking to this one.

Athos heaves a heavy breath through his nose and stands. “I need,” he says, “to take a piss.” He nods to Constance. “Apologies.”

“That’s fine.”

“Actually,” says Porthos, starting to rise as Athos leaves the room.

D’Artagnan puts his arm across him. “Don’t,” he says. “Just… give him a minute or two, please?”

Porthos sits again, frowning at d’Artagnan. “He all right?”

“He’ll… be fine.” He catches Constance’s eye. She grimaces sideways, cuts her eyes towards the direction where Athos has gone, her face a question. He shrugs minutely, seesaws his hand.

She flattens her lips briefly, letting genuine concern beam across to him for a moment, then turns to the others with a smile. “So, what did I miss earlier?”

“Porthos once set himself on fire,” says d’Artagnan.

“And he once fell off a cow.”

“Well, Aramis has a new poem,” says Porthos.

“Oh, God, no, don’t - it’s nothing,” he assures her.

“Ooh, _now_ I want to hear it,” she grins.

The others make encouraging noises. He scowls at them. “I don’t know how m-”

She flaps her hand. “I have to hear _lots_ of poetry these days. Go on.”

Unhappily, he unfolds the parchment.


	4. Gradual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which questions (and answers) are gifted in the dark.

In the dark it’s simpler. He can see the things that come rushing at him more easily, but there’s no need to hide his reactions to them. He can swipe and sway and grimace. There’s something to be said for proper remonstrance.

He said: “Why are you telling me this now?” His body was twisted back and he was looking down the steps at you.

You said: “I. I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. Not any more.”

“ _Milady?!_ ”

“Yes.”

“But”

But why? Simple: she was there, it was dark, and… so many memories and.

And she was right: I’ll never be free of her; she’ll never be free of me. You. You’re with your first love. She was mine and. And.

And when I kissed her it was like forgiving myself.

_Liar._

It _was_ like forgiving myself.

_And there’s more._

I desired her. I thought we might die and I desired her. I knew exactly how it would feel, how her body feels; the sight and sound and scent of her. And I wanted her very badly.

You have broken my resistance between you. I cannot bury myself any more.

 _Selfish_ and _a liar._

You. You speak with her voice now.

 _Maybe I always have_.

Jesus.

Such a mess. Such a _fucking mess_. And here we are, playing games. And now her, sitting there, strong and beautiful, and

_How do you feel about her?_

Constance. She is. God, despite everything, so pure, so. So pure and so wanton in one breath. And. And you and she are so bound, so… so _fucking happy_ and I. Me. The spectre at the feast.

Spitting and writhing. Impotent.

_Who am I now?_

You’re him. You’re.

You’re him.

“Aaaah! Fuck! _Fucking hell!_ ”

He is curled up on the steps down to the cellar. Cold and dark and miserable. Of course. Of course he fucking is. He is sitting in the dark and cold, slamming the side of his fist on the floor.

“Fuck!”

“Athos?”

Shit.

“I’m all right!”

“Oi!” the voice comes closer. “This ain’t the way to the jakes!”

“I tripped.”

“You tripped… and fell into the wine cellar.” Porthos’s voice is flat with the freight of sarcasm.

“Er. Yes?”

“That what you tell your confessor?”

“Fuck off, Porthos.”

“As you like. Bring us a couple of jars up?”

He sighs. “Fine.”

“Don’t take too long.”

“No…”

Think, think, _think_ , God-damn it.

I am.

 _No, you’re feeling, you’re…_ wallowing _._

_Admit it._

Fuck off.

_No._

“ _Milady?!_ ”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

You narrowed your eyes, looked away. “You… It’s. It’s complicated.”

“Look, I know we said that, if you wanted someone else, you should be able to, but…”

“But?”

“But I thought that…”

“You thought that Constance was that other person.”

“Well, yes.”

“That’s. It’s not. It’s not the same.”

D’Artagnan sighed. “No. No, I suppose not. You can’t be with her publicly. You can’t be with… with either of us publicly.”

I comforted you when she turned away from you. _Again_. Hell, I comforted _her_ , for the matter of that. And. And. I wanted to. I want to. I.

But.

But this was her, only for me. Just for me. God, imagine that.

You can’t. Not. Not really. You have everything you want. You’ve found. You.

Ah, _fuck_.

D’Artagnan came back down the steps leading to the cut-through, hair blowing in the damp, freshening breeze, barely visible in the gloom.

He put his hand on your shoulder, and you wanted to hold him. There and then crush yourself to him, take anything his mouth would gift you. See yourself hurrying him up the steps to press and press against the wet, black walls in this narrow pass, to hear him groan into you, to possess him again. Always. And again. And.

And you looked into his eyes, and this. This was not the time. He wanted answers. And he wanted assurances.

And you. You had nothing to give him except this body. This ache. These desires. This confusion, this profusion of… of bodies.

Shit!

Shit-damn!

Him and his bride, they belong in the light. You belong in the dark.

Or England.

Hah. Ha, fucking _England_. Seriously?

Seriously.

Damn.

Make a joke, make a damned joke, see if I fucking care. Joke about the food, the wine, the weather, the stupid fucking language, the terrible smell. Did I mention the food?

And her - you can’t trust her. But. But you just rode hundreds of miles to persuade a man to face the monster he created and to help you cut off its head.

How. I.

I can’t.

“You couldn’t kill her. I don’t think you ever will,” he said, so close you could feel his breath, the heat of him. “That has to mean something, but I don’t know exactly what. I.” He looked down, nodded to himself, looked back up. “I can’t pretend to fully understand this. But. Your life is your own, your choice is your own. I.” A sigh. “I love you. Constance loves you. You. You love us.” His voice broke on that last part. Are you seeing this clearly now? Are you there? There in the true moment of this? At last? _Do you know what this means?_

It.

It means.

It means I could go.

_Yes._

It means I could go forever, or come back, and.

_Yes?_

He would still love me.

_Yes._

That. That’s never going to die. And I.

_Yes?_

Yes, I love him. Love them. Oh, God. Love them and they love me, and that’s never going to die.

Oh God.

He sits there, crying, weeping like a child. Weeping like a waterfall. Weeping like something is broken.

Weeping like something is free.

It means _always_.

Go or stay, you miserable fucking bastard, but _you are free_. And you will give her away to him with the wholest of hearts, steeped in sunshine, and then.

And then.

Ah, the hell with it. What comes will come tomorrow. And now we’ve tonight.

Fetch some flagons. Take a piss. Wipe your face. Let’s see this chapter closed in style. And booze and truths.

Yes.


	5. Credo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which similarities are narrowed and differences broadened

“Here you are.”

“Took you long enough,” grumbles Porthos.

D’Artagnan leans towards him. “Aramis and Constance have been in a debate about… ‘scansion’…?”

“Really.”

“I’m understanding about one word in four? Five? _Athos…_ ” he leans closer, stage whispers for Porthos’s benefit, “ _I believe I may be marrying above my station._ ”

Athos sniggers. At the same time he can smell the wine on d’Artagnan’s breath, wants to pull it inside him, drink from his lips, knock out the last of the lingering doubts.

And there’s another dangerous game.

Porthos sniffs, fills his lungs, gulders at the artistic huddle: “Oi! If you’ve quite finished?”

They both look around from where they’ve been poring over Aramis’s work. Both smile mildly. Constance moves her chair back into position. “We were only waiting for everyone to get back,” she says, with a smile that is eerily like the Queen’s. She crosses one leg over the other in a narrower imitation of Athos and gazes with provocative directness at Porthos, who scowls.

She is reminding him of Flea. And Samara. There is no good can come of that. For a moment, he feels the eerie sensation that she knows this, somehow, shakes it off, breaking eye contact with a slow blink and a turn to Athos.

“Your turn,” he grunts at him, not trusting his voice too well.

“I have never been to bed with two members of the same family. Separately or together.”

“Why is everyone looking at _me?_ ” asks Aramis, plaintively.

They say it all with their eyebrows.

“Dammit,” he mutters, drinks.

“You are going to be _wasted_ by the end of this,” commiserates d’Artagnan.

“Oi! Timekeeper!”

“Oops! Er, I have never been to bed with two women at the same time.”

Aramis groans. And drinks.

“Maybe you should just sip,” murmurs Constance, leaning towards him.

“I am _now_ ,” he whispers. Then: “Help!”

“How?”

“Oi!” says Porthos.

“Your turn,” she returns, sweetly.

“All right. I have never… gone to bed with a married woman…”

Aramis sighs resignedly. “As long as I don’t have to drink separately for each one…”

“ _Ohoho!_ ”

D’Artagnan toasts Constance before drinking and she, twinkling, returns the gesture. Aramis starts to grin.

“Oi! Constance! I said a married _woman!_ Also: yourself doesn’t count!”

Constance peers over the top of her cup at him, then puts it down. “I know,” she says, very precisely. Aramis’s grin just keeps getting bigger.

“Well,” says Porthos colour mounting in his cheeks. “Well, good for, er, good for you, Constance.”

“It was, thanks.”

D’Artagnan chokes on his drink and has to be patted on the back by Athos, who then asks, mildly: “I went to bed with my own wife, does that count?”

“No!” they chorus.

Porthos raises a finger and takes in a breath.

“No questions, remember?” says Constance. He subsides.

Everyone looks at Aramis, who is now far from grinning, staring off into the distance, colour draining slowly from him, mouth a little slack. He looks at Constance wildly, eyes wide, eyebrows high. She gazes right back at him. He shakes his head gently. She just crunches her mouth briefly and shrugs one shoulder minutely.

He blinks slowly, swallows, opens his mouth, closes it. Blinks rapidly. Opens his mouth again. Says: “Pass.”

“What?”

“I pass, Rulekeeper. Out of time. That one.” He drinks. Deeply.

“Fair enough,” says Porthos with a downturn of mouth and a shrug. “Constance?”

“I have never…” she says, slowly, eyes roving around the room for inspiration, “been to bed with… anyone related to any of you.”

“How do you know?” asks Porthos, roughly.

“I checked,” she says, pertly.

“Dammit.”

Constance sips.

“Well,” he says, checking mournfully, “turns out I don’t have to, but the rest of you, and especially Aramis,” with a side-eye to where the other is peering, somewhat unsteadily, into an empty cup, “need to charge your vessels. Go on!”

_Slosh, clugn-clugn, clink._

“I have never,” says Athos, then raises a finger, “ _to my memory_ , gone to bed with someone whom I didn’t love.”

D’Artagnan, brows raised in the middle, mouth sad and sideways, drinks. Constance, a very similar expression on her, does likewise. They both look at Athos while shaking their heads minutely. He nods minutely back on a long blink. _I know_. They both feel and cover tiny smiles. Aramis is drinking, another look of abstracted sadness on him.

“I have never…” says d’Artagnan, then freezes. “Oh, shit. No, _no_ , I _have_. _And_ that one. Damn. Er.” He glances sideways at Porthos. “I have never had sexual congress with a vegetable.”

Aramis, as he’d hoped, roars, while Porthos stamps and bellows hysterically. Athos’s eyes widen and he nudges d’Artagnan as Constance sips and puts her cup down very precisely. D’Artagnan’s hands fly over his mouth. She shrugs at him. Porthos stops abruptly as she reaches up to wipe her mouth, then starts giggling again, eyes wide. Aramis is leaning sideways and snorting into hiccoughs.

“It was,” she says with that same precision, “still a better prospect than Bonacieux.”

The candle next to Aramis threatens to gutter in the gust of mirth that follows, rocking shadows around the room. Porthos shakes his head and wipes his eyes.

“God-damn me, Constance,” he says, looking down at his hand, glittering in the firelight. “God-damn.”

“Your - hic - turn,” says Aramis, still sniggering.

“Er. I have.” He looks down at his hand again. “I have never… tasted my own… juices.”

“‘Juices’?”

He shrugs. Nods towards Constance. “I had to make it general, you know?”

“Let’s get this… straight,” says Aramis, whose words are definitely blurring at the edges, “You mean - hic - bodily fluids that are - hic - not sweat or tears or sno-ot or… blood or…” he sneaks a quick, wobbly look at Constance, shrugs, continues: “puke or pi-hic-iss. Right?”

“Right.”

“Right.” He drinks. They all drink.

Porthos is flabbergasted. “I thought for sure I was onto a winner there! I’m getting very thirsty here… _Seriously?!_ ”

“Don’t knock ’til you’ve tried it,” says Aramis, smirking into his cup.

Porthos turns to the other two Musketeers. “Seriously?” They shrug in unison. He shakes his head.

“All right, my thir-hic-hirsty brother,” says Aramis, “I have never… gone to hi-bed with someone in order to - hic - gain money…”

“Oh, you filthy liar!”

“We never - hic - went to bed.”

“What?!”

“We just kissed. All right, there was s-ic-some f-fondling, but…”

“Bloody hell!”

“Drink up! Drink up to the beautiful Wi-hic-idow Clerbeaux!” He takes a deep breath and holds it, massages his chest slowly.

“Dear God,” says Porthos, wiping his moustache slowly. “I’d forgotten her name.” The others make hoots and hisses of theatrical disapproval.

“I have never paid for sex.” No-one drinks, but they all look hesitant. Constance buries her face in her cup. “Thought so,” she said, emerging.

“Blimey, why’re you all looking so shifty?!” demands Porthos.

“Well…”

“Well, what? Bunch of bloody snobs. It’s a very respectable profession.”

“Of course.”

“Of course, Porthos. No offence was intended,” says Aramis.

“No,” says Constance, a little pale.

“Honestly?” says Athos. “I can’t remember either way…”

“I’ve had… fun with professionals,” adds Aramis, mildly. “It’s just that I never had to pay for the privilege.”

“Oh.”

“Oh yeah, the Cardinal’s woman.”

“Hmm.” They grow silent.

“Um,” D’Artagnan raises his hand.

“What?”

“ _Technically…_ ”

“ _Ohhh_ ,” comes on a rising note from several throats.

“Technically, I _did_ visit a professional _and_ paid them, _but_ ,” he says, “I didn’t have sex with them.”

“Eh?”

“What?”

“Well, I wanted some advice.”

“Advice?”

“And I got a demonstration,” he mutters.

“What?”

“When was this?” asks Athos, quietly.

“Orléans.”

“Orlé… oh…” He seems to be thinking deeply. His eyes widen abruptly. “Oh!”

“Right?”

Athos’s eyebrows have disappeared into his hair and he looks into his drink.

“Are you _blushing?_ ” asks Constance, delighted.

“No.”

She smirks.

“I have never,” he announces hurriedly, “had sex with a farm animal.”

Everyone looks at d’Artagnan, who starts to raise his cup, then lowers it. “Hilarious. You _are_ all a bunch of snobs.”

He glares at Athos, who mutters “I was thirsty,” and buries a snigger in his cup.

“Your turn,” says Porthos to d’Artagnan. “Have you started the count?”

“What? Oh. Oh, er, count, I’ve, er, never… seen… seen Rochefort naked.”

Various cries of disgust and “Why?!” and “Oh, come _on!_ ” ring the mess.

Constance shakes her head. “I think you might be a bit obsessed with him.”

“Yes - _that_ ’s why I ran him through. It was all…”

“Symbolic?” suggests Athos.

“Hilarious.”

“You _literally_ started this.”

“I panicked!”

“You need to stop doing that…”

D’Artagnan sticks his tongue out at him, then remembers and drinks. Aramis makes a gagging sound. His hiccoughs seem to have subsided.

Porthos says: “I have never seen the Queen naked.”

Constance and Aramis look at each other, one eyebrow raised each, toast wryly, and drink. D’Artagnan and Athos shake their heads and look disapprovingly at Porthos, who spreads his arms wide and says “What?”

“I have never,” says Aramis, with a gentle, distant smile, “had sex in a stable.”

“Define…”

“Hmm… Anything that brings you to climax, or could stand to bring you or the, er, person you’re _engaged_ with, er, thence.”

Porthos drinks, a far look on his face. His moustaches twitch in what might be a smile. Athos and d’Artagnan, without looking at each other, drink in almost perfect synchrony.

Constance smiles, shifts and leans forward in her chair. “If you’ll excuse me…?”

“Oh. Oh, sure,” says the Rulekeeper, dragged back from remembrance. “Er, do you know the way?”

“I’m sure d’Artagnan will show me.” He stands with alacrity, wobbles, steadies, then holds his hand out to her with a grin. She rises a little slower, hand on the nearby table, then reaches the other one to him, passing Athos by, seemingly accidentally brushing his left shoulder with her hip. His left hand remains raised in some kind of polite farewell.

“Well then,” says Porthos, rubbing his hands, “this is proving quite the evening!”

“I _like_ her,” says Aramis.

“That’s only coz you’ve got stuff in common.”

“What do you mean by that?!”

“I mean: she didn’t tell you that your poem was shite.”

“Oh, true. Yes. Cultured, um, woman. Excellent… taste… Hmm. Also: she may have saved my life a bit earlier.”

“‘A bit’?”

“She hit, er, Rochefort with her um, her pistol when I was on the ground.”

Athos, a small, slanting smile on his face, runs his left hand down his cheek and onto his lips, saying: “Quite right, too,” rather absently.

“You all right?” demands Porthos.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Thank you.” He peers at Aramis. “We should get some water into him. If we love him.”

“Sadly, we do,” says Porthos with a sigh, and groans himself up to his feet. “Come on!”

They sluice the poet with only minimal objections.


	6. Offertory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some further truths are revealed, some sacrifices are made, and the nature of games briefly debated.

When they return, everyone affects not to notice how long they’ve taken or the healthy flush in their cheeks. It’s cold outside, after all - the kind of sharp, windy, autumn night that would put a sparkle in anyone’s eye.

Porthos has put bread into Aramis’s hands and is staring at him. He shoves a truculent portion in his mouth then, after a moment of chewing, his eyes open a little wider.

“Ah?” says Porthos. “Didn’t I tell you it was good?”

The poet’s reply is indecipherable.

“Is that water?” asks Constance. When Aramis nods and Porthos grunts, she stretches another cup down from the shelf, ignoring Aramis’s smiling appraisal, and sloshes water into it.

She looks over her shoulder, flicks her eyebrows at d’Artagnan and Athos, who both nod. She reaches up again, on one foot this time and, seemingly accidentally, kicks Aramis on the leg with her flailing boot.

“Oh, sorry!” she says, brightly. “Did I catch you?” Pouring water again, she passes the cups to the others, who are only partially succeeding in suppressing their smirks.

Porthos hits Aramis on the upper arm and he clutches it and scowls, blooming back into his usual sunny mien a moment later. He takes another mouthful of bread and chews merrily.

“Nice, this,” he says, somewhat indistinctly. “Surprisingly fresh.”

“Yes,” says d’Artagnan, “I know.”

“Well, you did have it first.”

Porthos clears his throat ballistically and says “Are we all ready then? I think it’s Constance’s turn.”

“Easy,” she says. “I have never had sex while drunk.”

D’Artagnan raises his eyes in calculation, then drinks with Porthos and Athos. Aramis smiles.

“You’re kidding,” says Porthos to him.

“ _Having_ drunk, yes,” says Aramis. “ _Drunk_ , no.”

“Fair.”

“Your turn, Athos.”

“Right. All right. I have nev… Ooh. No. Bugger.”

“You have never buggered…?”

“Ah…” Athos points into the air several times.

“Well, there’s your statement,” laughs Aramis, “‘I have never buggered.’”

Athos presses his lips together and shakes his head. Porthos whistles. “Damn,” he says.

“Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it,” says Aramis.

“You want to knock it off with that one.”

“Surely!” he holds his hands up in mock surrender.

Athos says: “I have never been mistaken for a prostitute.” Constance, D’Artagnan, and Porthos drink. “Too easy,” he mutters with a smirk.

“I have never buggered… anyone,” says d’Artagnan, swiftly.

Eyes are wide. There’s a rising note from Porthos as first Athos, with a resigned face, and then Aramis drink. Constance raises her hand.

“Yeah?”

“Can we have a definition?”

“Er, Constance,” says Porthos, “you don’t… how do I put this? You don’t have the equipment.”

She tilts her head to one side, raises an eyebrow.

“I’m… I’m assuming.” His face drops into something that borders on comical.

“Your meaning is that only those with a rod between their legs can bugger someone?”

“Er… Yes?”

“Why?” she asks, sweetly.

“Well. Well, it’s just. It’s.” He appeals to the rest of the room. “Stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

Aramis makes a shrug of a face like: _you tell me_. D’Artagnan’s is merrily blank, and Athos’s is just blank.

He swings back to Constance. “Look,” he starts.

“Oh, no, that’s fine,” she says. “But we might have to readjust some earlier assumptions regarding the phrase ‘gone to bed with’.”

“Right?”

“Because, presumably, according to your definition, me going to bed with a woman is… entirely meaningless, according to… _equipment_ allocation.”

“Fuck.”

“Exactly.”

“Fine,” he concedes, throwing his hands up. Then: “So why aren’t you drinking?”

“Oh,” she says, “I just wanted to know.”

Porthos growls loudly, then looks at d’Artagnan. “You’re right,” he says, shortly.

“I am?”

“You _are_ marrying above your station.”

“And it’s your turn,” says d’Artagnan, looking at the watch.

“Balls. Erm, all right - I have never… seen the King’s balls.”

There is a lot of sniggering and theatrical casting about as if to summon memory. Porthos drinks heartily.

“Here’s to His Majesty!”

The others nod and make affirmative noises. Constance toasts and takes a sip.

“Here, was that…?!”

“ _No!_ ” she says, scornfully. “That was water. I was just drinking to his health.”

“Ah. Right. Your turn!” he says to Aramis.

“Hmm.”

“Pass?”

“No, I’ve got one. I’m just trying to think how to word it.”

“Time…”

“Fine. I have never,” he says, “come to a climax… without my…” he casts a look at Constance, “ _rod_ -” he shakes his head over the clumsiness of it, “or equivalent - being touched in some way. Oh! While conscious.”

Scowling, Porthos drinks, as does Constance. D’Artagnan looks hesitant, but puts his cup down, shrugs at Athos, holds his thumb and forefinger very close together where he reckons no-one can see, looks at Athos again, who makes an “oh” shape with his mouth and looks away hurriedly.

“I would _love_ to hear that story,” says Constance to Porthos.

“Tough,” he says. “Your turn.”

“Fine,” she says. “I have never seen Aramis’s balls.”

“ _Hey!_ ”

They all drink. Constance, jaw dropped, looks around them in a kind of delighted amazement.

She catches d’Artagnan’s eye, hoists her eyebrows high.

He shrugs, mouth a wry twist. “Sometimes, when you’re on the road…” She frowns abruptly and his face drops adding, hurriedly: “Privacy is limited, especially when bathing.” He wags his finger at her. She is entirely unabashed.

“Athos?” barks the Rulekeeper.

“I have never kissed a serv- ah, er. I have never kissed a… God-damn it. Pass.” He shakes his head, grimacing.

D’Artagnan lays a comforting hand on his arm. He looks at it, turns, and they gaze at each other for a beat longer than onlookers might expect.

Porthos clears his throat. D’Artagnan pulls his hand back and looks at him expectantly, pushing the hair off his face. Athos slugs back a long swallow of ale.

Porthos clears his throat again.

“Oh! Oh, sorry. I have never…” eyes flicking quickly, “kissed… a… a pâtissière.” He mouths _sorry_ to Aramis, who makes a sardonic moue in return and sips, grimaces, puts down his water, and takes another from his wine.

Porthos, looking at Aramis, then up to the ceiling, says: “I have never kissed a man.” There is a pause, then Constance drinks, then Athos. Then d’Artagnan and, finally, Aramis. Everyone turns to look at him.

He shrugs. “My turn? Well then - I have never kissed a Musketeer.”

Constance, again, buries a smirk in her cup, and then d’Artagnan and Athos look at each other, open their mouths, breathe in, smile, shrug, toast the company, and drink deeply.

“Oh, _come on!_ ” exclaims Porthos.

“It’s true,” says Constance. “You’ve even _seen_ me!”

Porthos glares at her, turns to the other two. “Can’t be proved. Disallowed!” he barks.

“And yet you let the thing with the goat go by.”

“And her ‘no-one in your family’ thing.”

“ _And_ you said ‘no questions’…”

“That was ‘no explanations sought’…”

“… Well, obviously I missed something before I got here, because I don’t remember the ‘except Porthos’ rule…”

“And you lot might just be winding me up,” says Porthos, louder, managing to sound aggrieved and wounded and reasonable.

“He’s got a point,” says Aramis, as mild as ever. Constance swings a look at him and he returns an equanimable one, then mimes putting a circlet on his head. Her eyes narrow further and she recrosses her legs, boot flashing rather near his knee. He frowns warily.

D’Artagnan has bent sideways and is whispering in Athos’s ear. Athos’s face, if you have the key to reading it, is showing an extraordinary wash of emotions. At one point he closes his eyes, breathing coming slow and deep. D’Artagnan’s left hand is palm up in front of him, weighing his arguments out rapidly.

Athos smiles, opens his eyes, smiles broader, places his still-gloved right hand in d’Artagnan’s urgent left, rises, and hauls him to his feet so that they’re standing remarkably close together, doublets all-but touching. Without once losing eye contact with d’Artagnan, he reaches his left hand to his mouth, biting down on the thumb so that he can pull the glove off with his teeth. He then pulls off the right, throws them both at Porthos’s feet, and reaches up with his left to touch d’Artagnan’s face.

It’s difficult to tell whether anyone is breathing except the standing pair.

D’Artagnan places his right hand on Athos’s chest, eyes still locked in his, the softest smile on his face. Athos echoes the gesture and d’Artagnan reaches up to lay his other hand on the tender hinge where Athos’s jaw meets his neck. The latter shivers, eyes closing, and they bend forward so that their foreheads touch.

Porthos is leaning back, staring, as if to get a larger view. Aramis is sat forward in his chair, smiling, jaw propped on one fist.

Their chins start to rock forward, minutely. They nuzzle - there’s no other word for it - brushing noses together again and again. And then, so softly that it’s almost impossible to tell when nuzzling has ended and the kissing begun, their lips touch, part, touch, part, touch… lock.

The watchers regain their breath, heaved almost in chorus, as the kisses coalesce, and deepen gradually. Anyone watching closely would see the glimmer of tongues. Their bodies cling closer together, and a faint series of humming sounds emanate from the pair.

Constance swallows, takes a draught of water for her dry throat. Aramis sits back in his chair again, slowly drains his wine. Porthos lifts his own and chucks it back, blank-eyed. Aramis’s grin gets broader and broader. His right hand swoops out towards Porthos.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” the latter moans.

“Come on…”

Porthos makes a kind of faint, hoarse groan, digs in his pockets, and puts a livre in Aramis’s hand.

Aramis breaks off gazing at the lovers for a moment, checks his takings, then returns to the vision in front of him. “Ab-ab-ab!” he admonishes, making a beckoning gesture with the fingers of his moneyed hand.

Porthos makes a full-throated growl at this, digs for, and slams another large coin into his hand.

“Thank you!”

Porthos looks at Constance. She looks at him. He clears his throat. Aramis turns towards Constance, chagrin dropping through his expression.

Constance looks at him, then seems to recollect something. “Oh no!” she exclaims, fist to her chest. “What a shock! How terrible.” Her other hand goes to the side of her head. “How I am betrayed. And on the eve of my wedding, too! Etcetera.” Raising her eyebrows sardonically at the others, she puts down her cup, rises smoothly, and taps Athos and d’Artagnan on their shoulders.

They break off instantly and turn towards her. D’Artagnan scoops her towards him with one arm and she goes on tiptoe as they kiss deeply, her hands flying into his hair to clutch and rake. Porthos blinks. Aramis’s eyebrows go up and his smile starts to return. Porthos shifts forward in his seat.

Athos, still standing in the circle of d’Artagnan’s other arm, taps the pair on their shoulders.

“Oh, sorry,” murmurs Constance with a smile, then turns and catches Athos’s face in her hands and brings him down for an equally deep kiss, her high notes of appreciation and arousal counterpoint to his bass groans.

Aramis’s eyebrows are lost under the brim of his hat. Porthos clears his throat and holds out his left hand. With a bad grace, Aramis hands back one of the livres. D’Artagnan raises his own eyebrows at the pair of them.

Porthos clears his throat again, this time in lieu of a good answer. Aramis says, slightly hoarsely: “I bet him that you two, were, er, _involved_ …”

“And I offered him good odds against it but said that, on the outside chance it was true, I reckoned Constance would be more than all right with it.”

D’Artagnan’s eyebrows remain raised. Porthos offers a conciliatory grimace that is as close to “sorry” as d’Artagnan reckons he’s going to get. With a small smile he bends and starts to kiss Constance’s neck. She moans. He switches to Athos’s neck. He growls and turns to kiss d’Artagnan.

“More wine, old chap?” asks Aramis.

“Don’t mind if I do,” says Porthos, clearing his throat again, which seems to have developed a small quaver from somewhere.

Both of the other men are now kissing Constance’s neck and she’s nigh-on swooning between them. She recovers herself with a brisk shake and pushes away to stand back, arms outstretched. _Good boys_. One arm each still about the other’s waist they gaze at her, bright-eyed.

She starts to look around for anything she might have left behind, lifts her lantern, turns her eyes to the seated others.

“Well,” she says, twinkling no less than the others who sway and nuzzle on their side of the broken circle.

“Well?” asks Porthos, a little hoarsely.

“Who’s won?”

“I… I don’t think that’s how…” He peters out under her gaze.

“You’ve won, Constance,” says Aramis, softly.

“No,” she says. “You really haven’t understood.” She beckons the others, tuts when she notices that they’ve started to kiss, again, slowly - longer and longer pecks, smiling, deepening with each one. “Come on! Do I have to _tow_ you?!”

“Where are you going?” asks Porthos. She walks up to him, bends, and picks Athos’s gloves up. 

“Well,” she says, stepping back and handing them to Athos without looking, “we’re not staying here.”

“I suppose not,” says Aramis, astonishingly mild. His eyes roll upwards in calculation. “It must have been… a while since…” he says.

“There have been other… consolations…” she says. His eyes widen. She nods gravely. They understand each other. It’s not fair. What is?

As if coming to a decision, she bends forward and whispers in his ear, turned away from the rest of the company. He nods, nods again with a smile that contains many things. She kisses his cheek and withdraws, nods to Porthos who returns one vaguely to her. She takes d’Artagnan by the arm and starts to tug him towards the door. Stumbling, laughing, he follows after, towing Athos by the hand.

“If you’ll excuse us,” she says to the remaining players.

“We have some business to take care of,” says d’Artagnan, aglow.

Athos half-bows to them.

And then they’re gone. Aramis sits, elbow propped on the table, a very distant look in his eye. Porthos sighs, rises, pokes the fire, adding another couple of small logs. Dusting his hands he sits, spots the remains of the bread, and pulls it towards him.

“Hark at the wind,” he says, between mouthfuls, hearing it sough across the chimney, rattle in the eaves.

After a while he says: “Do you fancy…?”

“Hmm?”

“Er, a game of…”

“Oh, anything you like, old chap.”

“Right.”

They play a quiet few hands of Fifteen, betting desultorily with the smaller coins in their pocket. There’s an air of anticlimax between them, the grand wager having paid off all too well.

Hand finished, bread finished, Aramis staring into middle distance again, Porthos says: “You, er, earlier you said you’d kissed a man…”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Once. A while ago.”

“Do you, uh. Hmm. Care to share the tale?”

Aramis heaves a sigh - it is somewhere between happy and melancholy, thinks Porthos, and he’s unsure what to make of it, only that now is a time to stay quiet.

“Well, this is a night for it. Something in the manner of a last confession?”

Porthos gestures broadly. “If you like.”

He smiles at that. “Will you tell me one in return?”

“That… seems only fair.”

“Hmm. But I get to choose which, since you’ve picked this…”

“Again: fair.”

“Well, now.” He sniffs, clears his throat, takes a swallow of water. “I don’t know how well you know Orléans…” Porthos’s shrug indicates that he knows it well enough. “Have you ever heard of a place called Chanticleer?” Porthos shakes his head, mouth downturned. “Well, [this would have been about six years ago](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14616350)…”


	7. Sanctus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tall tales take the travellers to their next destination.

They stride out into the singing darkness like something invincible, d’Artagnan relinquishing Athos’s hand reluctantly. By mutual consent they are walking to the Palace rather than riding, and taking a slightly circuitous route to enter via the Gardens. They all pull on their gloves, shrugging into cloaks against the weather, but eschewing the hoods; the wind is high and threatens to take Athos’s hat on adventures of its own. He smiles as the others both toss their heads back to enjoy the feel of it in their hair, d’Artagnan swinging the lantern merrily.

“Ooouff,” says Constance, turning in a dancing circle, arms wide, “I _love_ that.”

“Why don’t you let it down some more?” suggests Athos, imagining it flying, witch-wild.

“Spoken like someone who’s never had long hair.” He nods acknowledgement. “It would feel _amazing_ for about three minutes, and then I’d spend an hour wrestling it.”

“And there are better things for you to wrestle.”

Her eyes are very bright in the scudding moonlight. “Oh, and I’ll just bet you’ve got some _excellent_ suggestions…” He feels his breathing hitch. She reaches out her left hand to him and they stride on together, her and d’Artagnan arm-in-arm, she and he hand-in-hand.

Athos decides that he very much enjoys walking fast with her - she seems to have adapted to her new garb remarkably quickly.

“I meant to ask,” he says, as she stomps through a puddle with every sign of relish, “where did you get the boots and breeches?”

“Huh?”

“Well, apart from the gown, the rest of the gear we lent you, but those fit very”

“A friend,” she says, quickly.

“A friend?”

“André. We’re about the same size.”

He frowns. Then understanding dawns. He must be one of the pages at Court. Then he frowns again. “But they were in your hou-”

“Frankly, Athos, I’m _amazed_ you’re not using this opportunity to follow up on some _lingering notions_ from the game - all those things unsaid…?”

“Eh?” He shakes his head. “Well, we already know your greatest secret.”

“Is it?” asks d’Artagnan. “Still a secret, I mean?”

“I don’t think Porthos twigged,” says Athos.

“I think you’d be surprised.”

“I think I would.”

“Hmm.” They walk on for a while. “Me,” he says, “I can’t help wondering about the vegetable.”

“Wh- oh…” says Athos. “Oh! Yes!”

They look down between them. Constance, from the look of her, is laughing silently - shaking with mirth.

She raises her head with a sniff, says: “Cucumber!” then dissolves again into fits of barely-audible giggles.

D’Artagnan looks wide-eyed over her head at Athos, who shakes his, astonished and amused.

“Did you, er…” he begins.

“… eat it?” finishes d’Artagnan.

She squeaks, shoulders hunched and head forward, then recovers herself, sniffs again. “They _all_ did!”

D’Artagnan, who has formed a rather more detailed picture of the extended Bonacieux family than Athos, imagines those upright, denier-clutching, status-guarding souls tucking into a delicious salad under Constance’s bright eye, has to stop to recover.

They wait. “Lord,” he says, breathlessly, eventually, “I swear - every time I think I love my wife-to-be, I find I love her more.”

“This is nothing, Gascon,” she retorts, crisply, tugging him onwards. “Just you wait until I get going.”

She turns towards Athos. “If we’re asking follow-up questions…”

“As it seems we are…” he replies, cautiously.

“Who was that one you were talking about? Niobe?”

“Hmm?”

“When we were talking about kissing.”

“Oh.” He casts his mind past the feel of their lips on his and says: “Chione.”

“Sorry, Chione.”

“That’s all right,” he says, absently.

“Tell us about her?”

“The Snow Princess? It’s not a happy tale.”

“Oh. More _Metamorphoses_?”

“Hmm.”

“Are _any_ of them happy?”

“Er…”

“You need cheerier reading materials.”

“That I do.”

“Well, we still have a while to go - will you tell us a tale?”

“From _Metamorphoses_?” He’s startled.

“Or anywhere.”

He thinks. “Hmm. It’s the right kind of night for it - a high wind, good company, a crackling fire -”

“Not yet,” says d’Artagnan.

“Soon,” she says, nudging him. “Go on.”

“I’m no Aramis,” he warns.

“Oh,” says d’Artagnan, gesturing dismissively with a clank of lantern, “he usually forgets half the names…”

“True enough.” He thinks further. “Well then, I’ll tell you the tale of Aphrodite and Adonis.”

“The Goddess of Love?” She smiles up at him.

“And the most beautiful man in the world.”

“Go on, then.”

He considers, plucking threads from different sources to weave together.

“Aphrodite is not always kind. When she thinks she’s been usurped or bragged against, she’ll take her revenge. And she cursed a stubborn young woman with an insatiable desire for… an unsuitable person. She fell pregnant and fled retribution, and, in the extremity of her fear, was turned into a myrrh tree on the banks of a river.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“More often than you’d think, apparently,” he tells her, gravely. “Especially when Aphrodite’s flighty charity is involved.”

“What happened to the baby?”

“Some say the tree was struck by lightning, others that a shepherdess helped deliver him, yet others that a sword brought him forth, and then there’s the story that a boar gored the tree, laid it open for the babe to emerge.”

“Which do you believe?”

“I think that, no matter the manner of it, he was a shepherd at first. However, the circumstances of his anointed birth and fosterage by holy powers meant that, while he spent nine months of each year in Aphrodite’s care, he had to spend three with Persephone in the land of the dead, and that will change a person.”

“A shepherd?” asks d’Artagnan from the dark.

“Hmm. But he learned to love the hunt. No-one could compete with him for fleetness of foot or bravery against all sorts of wild animals.”

“So loved by, er, Artemis as well,” says Constance.

“Ah,” says Athos, “but the ever-chaste Goddess of the Hunt and the Goddess of Love are often at odds, and Aphrodite had caused the death of one of Artemis’s faithful followers.”

“I feel a tragedy coming on.”

“I know few other tales.”

“Athos…” says d’Artagnan in a tone which means: _we’ve talked about this_ …

He smiles. “Well, let’s see. The courtship between Aphrodite and Adonis had not been smooth, and was littered with misunderstandings, so that it took a long while for them to come together wholly.”

“It’s all that dallying with death,” says Constance, sagely.

“Hmm.”

“Did she not approve of him hunting, then?”

“Oh, that wasn’t it at all,” says Athos, “not until the final time, anyway. Oh, careful - this bit’s narrow.”

“We know,” he says, softly amused. He stops to light the candle, remembering how treacherous this passage can be.

Athos stands back to let them both through into the darkness of the cut-through. Timing is important in any tale.

As he slides sideways through the narrow entrance, hat held in one hand, he says: “And now another character comes into the story.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. A wild boar, dark and bristled, broad-muscled, a scarred veteran of many hunts.” He makes deep, snorting, grunting sounds, hears the echoes tremble up the squeezing walls. The others giggle, snort back. “He was Artemis’s creature, and she sent him to cross Adonis’s path, fierce and proud and protective. And yet, crossing into Aphrodite’s country, he found that, instead of wanting to kill the young huntsman, he adored him, and, as boars do, _rushed him_ …” And he charges to grab d’Artagnan and swing him into the wall, pressing him hard with the length of his body.

D’Artagnan gasps on the impact with the wall, drops the lantern, moans as Athos’s mouth battens on his neck. Athos has one hand pinned to the wall next to his shoulder, the other trapped behind d’Artagnan’s own hip. He heaves as if to escape, which only presses him harder into Athos’s panting frame. He knows, explicitly, that if he asks Athos to stop, he'll step back immediately.

Athos takes a swift step back and flips d’Artagnan so that he’s facing the wall, both hands pinned up by his shoulders, legs kicked astride. A sliver of him is thinking: _I need to learn how to do that!_ while the rest is revelling in the contrast of the cold, hard wall and the heated body behind him, which has just started to rock and thrust.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he moans, feels himself arching back into him.

“But the _boar_ ,” pants Athos, “had for _got_ ten about his _tusks_ , and _how_ they would _pierce_ the be _lov_ ed, _beaut_ iful _man_ …”

Suddenly Athos feels his hair fisted from behind and something sharp pressing into his right side.

“And what of the Goddess?” she asks. “How will she treat with the one who’s gored her beloved?” She tugs harder, and he bows backwards a little.

“ _Ah!_ He hopes for mercy and understanding and, _ah!_ kneels in, in reverence,” he gasps.

“I think he should,” she advises. “Right now.”

As she steps back, he turns slowly and lowers himself to his knees. He can still hear d’Artagnan breathing hard, feel his heat.

“God, you’re a quick learner,” he says, looking up to her, underlit and flickering, her poniard inches from his face.

“Everyone says so,” she replies, a hard sort of smile gathering. “ _Ah_ -ah! Keep your hands high where I can see them.”

D’Artagnan has turned and is gazing at her in something approaching awe, still dishevelled from his brush with the boar. She reaches out and he takes her hand, which she tugs towards herself, eyes and blade still on Athos as d’Artagnan steps to stand next to her.

“They say,” he says, gazing up at both of them, “that Aphrodite persuaded Asclepius, the holy physician, to resurrect Adonis, and where her tears and his blood mingled, there white-and-purple flowers grew.”

Her face softens, then shapes itself into something more like a real smile. “What are we going to do with you, Athos?”

“Well,” he says, softly, “that rather depends on you, doesn’t it?”

She sheathes the blade and her dimples deepen. She reaches down with her right, and d’Artagnan, hurriedly, with his left, hauling Athos to his feet between them, leaving him to brush off his knees, pick up his dropped hat, and shake himself back into place.

“Either way,” she says, “you’re in a lot of trouble.”

“Believe me: I already know.”

“Come on.”

As they hang back to let d’Artagnan squeeze out at the other end with the slightly dented lantern, she leans to him and says: “I know you could have taken me down. Thanks.”

“Hmm. Next time, maybe I won’t go so gently on you…”

“Promise?”

He gapes, brain abruptly blank.

“How will I learn otherwise?”

“Constance,” he says, shaking his head, “I don’t think it’s only me who’s in trouble.”

“Well, it’s good to share.”


	8. Agnus Dei

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the subject of the advantages - and disadvantages - of breeches is brought up again, more explicitly.

In Constance’s Palace apartment, lantern casting warm shadows from the dresser, she’s still closing and locking the door when Athos and d’Artagnan start to kiss heatedly, wrestling with each other’s clothes and bumping into furniture, laughing as they do so, sword belts crashing to the floor.

“Hey!”

D’Artagnan, grinning, flushed, spins and kisses her, then bends to pick her up bodily, hoisting her by her seat. She locks her arms about his neck and flings her legs around his waist.

“Mmmf, mConftmmh! I, _mmh!_ I _like_ theve mmhbreeches!”

Athos, smiling his long, slanted smile, has draped his and d’Artagnan’s cloaks on a chair, and now comes behind her to lift hers away from her neck and add it to the pile, along with her belt and blade. He then returns to stand and press behind her, peel back the overlarge collar of her borrowed shirt, and kiss her neck and shoulder.

His hands start to explore her, and she hangs by first one arm then another to let Athos remove her leather jerkin. The jerkin is flung. His doublet hits the floor just behind it. Now he works rapidly on the ties of her hastily-adapted riding gown, and, faster than she would have believed possible, she feels the bodice loosen. D’Artagnan grunts, staggers briefly as Athos tugs the whole thing over her head and she’s forced again to, laughing a little, loose her grip one arm at a time.

As they return to kissing, Athos’s hands cup her rear, pressing and stroking; one slides up her side to caress her breast, and the other stays low - bold and clutching. As she starts to moan loudly into d’Artagnan’s mouth, both men sway a little closer together so that she’s pressed more firmly into Athos, who brings his hand up to the other breast.

D’Artagnan breaks off to nuzzle her neck, and then he and Athos are kissing over her shoulder. She relaxes her legs’ hold briefly to slide a little down his body so… uh, so, mmh, now she’s pressing against something much more interesting, feels his stance stagger a little again, hears a moan gather in his throat.

She tries to rock, succeeds for a few gasping flexes, but realises pretty quickly that her legs are going to tire soon. _I just need more practice._

Mmmh.

Then Athos’s hands are cupping her below and rocking her gently against d’Artagnan and - oh, God help her - that’s _good_. She and d’Artagnan moan helplessly, heads going back, and now d’Artagnan’s thrusting back, pushing her into Athos, who pushes back.

“I, I… I can’t keep… keep this…” gasps d’Artagnan, staggering again.

“Youngsters these days,” growls Athos in her ear, sending delicious waves down her, “have no stamina.”

“Oho!” says d’Artagnan. “Like that, is it?”

“Let her down gently, son.”

“You’re in _so_ much trouble.”

“So I keep being told.” He slides his hands along Constance’s thighs, then shifts to slip one arm beneath them and another around her waist. “Ready?” he whispers. She nods and slowly loosens her holds on d’Artagnan, who, feeling her weight change on him, steps back cautiously.

Athos eases her to her feet and she marvels all over again at his strength. Even d’Artagnan looks impressed, while trying not to.

“See what happens when you ease up on the drinking?” he quips.

“And take up more… exercise…”

It’s always fascinating to see the effect that Athos’s voice has on d’Artagnan when he adds that extra… curve to it. She wonders if her expression shifts in the same way.

_Probably. And yet the next minute he’ll seem to have no idea what he does to us, how we feel about him…_

She turns on that thought and kisses him hard. He returns it, and soon they’re gasping together.

He pulls back, hands cupping her jaw, and yet again with that look of incredulity on his face like: _really?!_

“Yes,” she says, “yes, _yes_ \- I _want you_.”

He makes that long, whimpering sound and pulls her face to his; hard, brutal kisses which she feels him rein back in the next breath, and she deliberately bites his lip, hears that sound again, now with extra growl, and he’s pulling at her borrowed shirt, collar points fisted in each hand as the loose fabric of his bunches in her lower grip.

“I’m going to tear this off you,” he says, voice low and trembling-hoarse.

“Oh, are you?” and her voice is trembling too.

“Mmh,” and each breath is so shallow, his skin so hot against her neck, he’s like a man in a fever.

“Do it, Musketeer, and there’s no coming back from that.” And she wants him to. God, she wants him to. And there’s fear too.

“I.” His head bows forward. “There’s. There’s no coming back from tonight.”

“So. So you want it all.”

“God. God.” The tension is singing through his chest, arms, fists, shoulders bunched against.

Against himself.

She can think of three ways immediately to stop him. She does none of them. She knows that, this time, it has to be his decision, merciless though that feels. She hears d’Artagnan draw closer. He still hasn’t mastered silence the same way. Without looking around she shakes her head, keeps doing it until she hears a tiny in-breath from him, feels more than hears his progress halt.

The first straining thread parts with a bright sound and he groans long and loud, his head sinking further.

 _Prrrkkh_. An inch now. She swallows. His head sags and sways to one side, heaving with his breath. And.

And he stands upright, nostrils flaring, a hard smile starting to spread on him. She finds herself answering it, looking up at him in delighted challenge as he brightens, bites his lip, then grins happily and rips the rest of the shirt down, grip-tear, grip-tear, _prrrrrkkh! prrrrrrrrrkkhh!_ leaving it on her and seizing her shoulders to bend and kiss her like he’d draw life from her mouth.

She pulls his hands down to her bared breasts and he chuckles against her mouth, cups and rolls until she’s gasping, then kisses down her neck to take first one then the other into his mouth as she moans, head back, and d’Artagnan’s there to catch her, then join Athos. Fire crackling through and down her, she roughly cups the backs of their heads, scrabbles along their necks and shoulders, shirts bunching under her grip.

Then they’re kissing across one nipple and she’s reeling from the sensation, eyes rolling shut. Her fingers uncramp from their shoulders and reach to grab the back of the nearest collar, which turns out to be Athos’s. He bends forward, shrugging so that she can pull it free, laughing at the sleeves peeling inside-out. And now she’s gasping at the feel of his bare torso against hers, the desperation in his eyes as he bends to kiss her again, the strength and heat of his mouth against hers, and then he’s reaching one arm to pull d’Artagnan crashing into them to kiss together - that strange new miracle of sensation.

Between them they pull his shirt from him, dive to mouth his torso like they’d take nourishment from it, him gasping and hissing as they lay tongues and teeth against him. He has a crop of days-old bruises from the tender mercies of the prison guards, overlaid with a few fresher ones from fights near and far, and fury wells in her briefly all over again to leave her fierce and craving.

She sends her tongue, flat and soft, over his tender ribs, and his hisses turn to gasps, gasps to moans as, out of the corner of her eye, she sees Athos do the same. Grinning, sly, they track each other upwards and spiral inwards over his nipples in almost perfect synchrony. D’Artagnan sways and moans again.

Before they quite know what is happening, as they release him to move further up, he plunges to his knees and reaches up to undo her points, then Athos’s, then to peel her breeches and underwear down, laying a moaning trail with his tongue down her belly and mound as he tugs and tugs at the tight cloth.

And then his tongue and lips are on her and she feels that unique frustration of the constraint of breeches when wanting to part herself further for a lover. His hands brush down her legs to her boots, and he sits back, chuckling.

“What?” she’s breathless, swaying.

“Nothing like as smooth as in my head.” He grins. “Let’s get you out of those.”

Athos has toed off his own boots with what appears to be a practised ease and, hauling his undone breeches a little higher with one hand, hurries over to steady her from behind, one arm around her waist as she raises each leg so that d’Artagnan can pull hers from her, face blank with focus. Soon she’s moaning all over again as d’Artagnan finishes peeling her clothes off and returns to pay homage with tongue and lips and sounds of enthralled appetite.

She leans back into Athos who lets his fingers ripple up her sides from her hips, where he’s been keeping her steady, now doing his best to wreck her balance with caresses that map the curves of her, the gasps and rocking moans of her. She feels strength ebb deliciously from her legs, leans back further, rocks harder towards d’Artagnan. This time she isn’t going to stop. His tongue is insistent, insinuating, matching her thrust for thrust, and ah, God!

“Ah, ah, _God! Ye-es! Ahh!_ ”

The men catch her gently as she sags between them, knees buckling. “Mmmh, _mmmmmh!_ ” She lets herself rest on them for a moment, knowing that the night is barely begun, if previous experience is anything to go by.


	9. Pax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which idiocy is explored briefly, along with the more profound lesson of letting go.

“We, hah,” she says, pushing herself to stand more firmly on her feet, “we need to get the fire going again.” She points. “The bedroom one. The, hah, the, er, actual hearthfire. Oooh…”

D’Artagnan rises, kisses her, then him, his arms around as much of both of them as he can, and jogs into the bedroom to poke at the remains of the fire a thoughtful servant - she rather thinks Sofia - has left smouldering, and to add wood from the nearby basket.

She smiles round at Athos, who nuzzles into the side of her face and neck.

“Ready to walk?” he asks.

“Ju-ust about…” she says, and he, hoisting his loosened breeches with one hand, squires her towards the next room, lending her back his warmth and bracing arm.

There, not only has d’Artagnan got the fire leaping merrily, but he’s lit two candles and is in the process of persuading another to flame. On succeeding, he looks up with such a triumphant look of simple joy that her heart leaps to meet it. She steps forward into heat, shrugging off the rags of the shirt to slide from her, and pulls him by the band of his breeches, standing on her toes to kiss him, while sending her busy fingers to undo him below. Behind her, she hears the inner door close.

She eases her hands inside the top of his breeches, hearing him hum in response, works back and forth to loosen and peel them slowly, taking her time, stroking and squeezing around his narrow hips and the wonderful flesh of his behind. His moans come louder with each inch she wins, and the breeches fall away as she reaches below his arse to stroke the sensitive skin at the top of his thighs. She looks down - yep, he took his boots and hose off while lighting things.

Trust a Musketeer.

She looks up to kiss him again, finds he’s staring over her shoulder with a deliciously mixed expression. Twisting her neck she sees. Oh.

“Oh my.”

Athos has shucked the rest of his clothes to puddle at his ankles and has one hand hooked around the back of his neck while the other is slowly stroking his length, from head to root, sparing none of the hard curve of himself. He opens hooded eyes, smiles, murmurs “Oh, don’t stop. Please.”

“We need to be giving you something better to watch than that,” she says, “nice though my arse is.” And she turns d’Artagnan sideways so that she can work her mouth down his body. He steps nimbly out of his crumpled breeches, kicks them away, then gasps as her mouth finds him.

“Not. Not that I mind, but… but why am _I_ … ah, the, the, ah, _mmmh_ , the exhibition piece?”

“Because,” purrs Athos, “it’s your turn.”

Constance hums in agreement, feels the effect of that on him, hums again, lips closed to the right tension, after a few tries, to have them buzz against him. She glides back and forth, covering the rest of him with her hand, agreeing with Athos that she daren’t take d’Artagnan as deep as he takes Athos. She realises that she really wants to know about the advice (“and a demonstration”!) he received - it sounds like it could be useful. Certainly interesting.

She clutches his hips, feeling her own excitement mount, encouraging him to rock into her. He does so very gently, but with a twist so that he’s moving in a tiny circle. She imagines that vividly, further down inside her, loses concentration for a swooning, groaning moment, grips his shaft again with her right, and reaches between his legs with her left hand to fondle, lift, and stroke. He shifts his legs open in response, runs his fingers delicately along the side of her head, and she follows her instinct to where Athos has shown her that d’Artagnan loves to be touched.

She doesn’t know how much she dares, and the angle is slightly wrong, but she finds she very much wants to touch him there, as deeply as he’ll allow her. A rattling groan sounds from Athos.

“Come closer, you i-idiot,” pants d’Artagnan.

“Oh,” he says, “I can’t last long like this. I h- I have to, to stop,” but his anguished tone comes closer all the same.

His face creasing, he shakes his head and runs both hands through his hair. D’Artagnan reaches out to draw him near for a kiss, which rapidly becomes heated as she works harder on him. He swells further and she hums again. _Nearly…_

“Mmmhoh, woah,” he exclaims, panting, pulling back a little, hand running down the side of her face, “wait, wait.”

“Really?” she says, a little dryly. “You too?”

“I just,” he pushes his hair out of his flushed face, “I just want to, um, for it to last, is all.”

Sitting back on her heels, she raises her eyebrows at them. “We have plenty of time ahead of us… Don’t we…?”

Athos shuffles, hand back in his hair. “Well…”

She frowns up at him, then, as her brows level in realisation, she looks, somehow, even more angry.

“What, did you think that… that this would all stop once he and I were married? That you’re, what, not _worthy…?_ ”

“Well…” His face screws up on one side, as if pained.

“Unless that’s…?”

She turns to d’Artagnan, who rapidly says: “No, _no!_ ” waving a hand in emphatic negation.

She turns back to Athos. “You’re an idiot,” she says.

“Apparently so.”

“Also - unless you were planning on getting a lot of sleep tonight - I personally don’t have to be anywhere for _ages_ …”

The men grin at her.

She reaches up and strokes the length of his thigh from knee to hip with the flat of her hand, then runs the tips of her fingers along the side of his cock. It jumps. She feels her pulse leap in answer.

“Athos, will you let me…?”

Face slackening, he looks down and asks: “What…?”

Smiling, she says: “I’d like to take you in my mouth, feel your pleasure grow there.” He groans, a species of desperation or anguish falling through his expression. He’d forgotten, somehow, that they’d never. That. Oh, God.

She adds: “I promise to withdraw before you climax… unless you beg me to continue.”

“Jesus,” he whispers. Then nods raggedly. “Yes. Yes, please.”

Rising higher on her knees, she kisses her way up his thigh to lay her tongue on his sac, lift that silkiness over and again with the tip, lay the flat of it against the underside, feel him shift forward, just a little. Smiling, she kisses it, feels the firm heat bobbing against her cheekbone throb again, starts to kiss the root of his shaft.

He gasps. Looking up, she sees his head rock back and d’Artagnan catch it, bring it around to kiss him. Good.

 _The only downside to taking men in your mouth_ , she thinks, _is the way it’s so difficult to see their facial expressions. Unlike… well, maybe best not get distracted right now…_

Her tongue laps around him as she works her way up his shaft, kissing and licking, lips soft and enveloping, cataloguing, as she does so, somewhere in that busy, rarely quiet part of her mind, the differences and similarities between him and d’Artagnan. Less musky; slightly more curved; paler, of course, so that the heat of him shows more strongly; narrower here, broader _here_. She finds her own excitement rising as she runs her tongue into the groove where his flesh dips before flaring, can’t help but imagine how this blunt arrowhead would feel inside her elsewhere…

And now she’s enveloping him. He looks down to see himself start to disappear inside her mouth, sways, damned-near sundered by this, somehow. D’Artagnan catches him again, kisses his neck, lays firm hands either side of his chest even as hers climb to his belly and reach to cup him behind respectively, pulling him into her. Simultaneously drowning and on fire he just lets this _happen to him_. It’s like a weight he never knew he was carrying falls, and he nearly swoons with the lightness.

He’s rocking, gently - it’s all he wants right now, held by her, held by him. Safe. “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” he keeps muttering, until he’s murmuring it against d’Artagnan’s mouth and everything surges and the light inside him is growing and swelling and turning and he’s turning to say “Please, please, I want to; I really, _really_ want to c-oh God, oh God, yes… _yes!_ ”

She feels him swell to marble hardness then, just as she’s starting to withdraw, hears his plea, feels it strike into her chest, delves as deep as she dares, seizing the rest of his shaft and giving him three hard, synchronous strokes until he jets, shouting, into her.

She withdraws just as he staggers, sees d’Artagnan already there to take his weight, grabs his hips, finds she’s brought one knee up to brace him, foot firm to the floor beside his. D’Artagnan is smiling broadly at him, so fondly it’s enough to melt her heart, especially when he turns that light to her.

“Come on,” she says, unable to repress her own enormous smile, “let’s get him”

“Yes!”


	10. Communion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a new conjunction is devised, aftershocks are discussed, and a novel means to soothe a troubled mind is explored.

They support him to the bed, and this time he just collapses back onto it, making a sound like “whump!” as his torso hits the mattress. They giggle, then kiss. Then kiss deeper, and d’Artagnan is saying: “God, tasting him on you, God Almighty!”

He dives to scoop the last of it leaking from him with his fingertip and bring it back to her as they giggle and kiss and hum, sucking his anointed finger between them.

“Hyestas tekaveday!” slurs from the bed, followed by sniggers.

“What was that?” asks d’Artagnan.

“Γεύσασθε καὶ ἴδετε!” he says, slightly more clearly.

“What is that?”

He shrugs at her.

“Maybe he’s speaking in tongues.”

“We’ve broken him,” whispers d’Artagnan, somewhere between appalled and delighted.

“That’s a shame,” she says, “with so many more things we could have done with him.”

“Oh God,” he says, “what wicked thoughts are you having?”

“Kiss me and find out, Gascon.”

He does. And then he leads her to the bed, lays her down beside Athos, and takes his mouth to her again.

Before long, she’s rocking and moaning, flailing and arching. Her hand is caught and she looks over to see Athos gazing at her. And she gazes back, feeling her wild expression melt to reflect his.

_Do you see it now?_

Oh, God. Yes.

 _That’s adoration_.

I know. Oh, God, I _know_.

She grips his hand as she starts to peak, and he absolutely will not shift his gaze. It’s possible that he can’t. As d’Artagnan brings her, he holds her hand, steady, gasping with her, squeezing back as she loses sight of him, her head pushing back into the bed, crying out as she climaxes hard and descends, only to bounce straight back up as d’Artagnan shifts a little, brings his fingers to her, sliding deep, and _keeps on going_.

“Fuck, _fuck, FUCK!_ ” she shouts. She is starting to see random images behind her stuttering eyes - colours that don’t exist, memories that never were, enticing symmetries of impossible shapes and “God, _yes, YES!_ ”

One last, near-painful lick of pleasure and he withdraws to lie beside her still-tumultuous body, twitching and flickering in and out of here and the elsewhere images that slow and retreat. When he places his hand on her chest, she could swear, for a moment, that it splashes colours on her before fading into simple touch.

Her skin is exquisitely sensitive and she can feel their breaths on her. Athos has shifted and she senses his heat to her other side. It takes a moment for her to remember how to smile, and then she can’t stop, and then she giggles and snorts and giggles more as they join her, kissing her cheeks, nuzzling into her.

“Mmmh,” is all she can say for what feels like a long while. “Mmmmhmmm…”

Athos hears her suddenly gasp, sees her belly contract. “Are you all right?!” he asks, alarmed.

“Mmmmh!”

“It’s all right,” says d’Artagnan. “This, um, this happens sometimes.”

“Really?!”

“Have you ever been in an earthquake?”

He nods.

“Well, with the big ones, you have a smaller one a little later. It’s like that with her sometimes.”

“Holy mother…”

“Yeah.” He smiles. “It was a bit scary the first time.”

“C’n’earyouy’n… know.”

“Sorry!”

“Pff!”

“D’Artagnan,” he says, struck by a notion and with no means _not_ to say it.

“Yes?”

“I’d _really_ like to lick you.”

“Wow, I”

“Now.” He sits up sharply, nearly falls over again. “I want to lick your arse. Put my tongue in you. Fuck. Yes, God, yes, I really do. May I? Please?”

D’Artagnan’s cheeks are flaming, from what he can see. “Yes. Oh, yes.”

Constance gives a boozy chuckle. “Oh, _good_ …” He looks over at her, lying there with her eyes still shut, grinning.

“Nono,” he says as d’Artagnan makes to rise. “Stay there. Just… turn over.”

“All right.”

He staggers upright, leans for a moment on the bedpost, ooh, it’s _that_ bedpost. Very experienced post. Hmm.

Hold on.

He spends a good half-minute breathing, focusing himself, veteran of too many drunken staggers home. Feeling more present, he walks to where d’Artagnan is waiting, face-down next to Constance.

“Mmmmh. Very nice. Now, move down so that you’re right at the edge of the bed.”

D’Artagnan squirms down to meet him, lets his feet down to the floor, groans as Athos, on his knees, parts him, leans forward to savour him.

He has no further plan than just to take his fill of this, delving, circling, letting his tongue play over the ridged area behind his balls, pressing again and again to hear him moan, feel him heat beneath his hands, feel that fluttering, pulsing flesh give way over and over.

After a while, Constance sits up and crawls over to him.

“God,” she murmurs, “that’s a sight.”

He grins up at her.

“Can I join in?”

“Mmmh!” He laughs when he realises that d’Artagnan has said this at the same time as he has, only louder and more enthusiastically.

Engaged with trying to map out the practicalities, he asks, without thinking: “Have you ever, er…”

She gives him a look. “Not that exactly, but…”

“Oh.” He feels himself colour, ludicrously. “Oh, right, of course…” He has put a lot of effort - almost as much as with Aramis - into _not_ thinking about her and the Queen together.

One dimple deepens and he rolls his eyes back at her above an expression of sheer chagrin.

She then sprawls over d’Artagnan’s back (to a small grunt from him) and angles her head downwards. After a couple of shifting trials, she starts to lick down from just behind his tailbone, eliciting moans that grow more frenzied as he starts to lay his tongue on his sac and up the ridge, occasionally meeting Constance. They have to angle their heads in opposite directions, but it works quite well, and is worth it for the responses, including a distinct, if limited, rocking back towards them.

“D’Artagnan,” calls Constance.

“Mmh? Yes?”

“May I touch you here, with my finger…?”

“Oh God, yes.”

She looks down at Athos, who raises his finger to his mouth to suck it meaningfully. She rolls her eyes at him: _of course_.

Then, with a mischievous moue, she reaches her left hand to him, and he takes her finger to suck it. She gasps, and he presses her palm with circling, caressing thumbs as his tongue loops thoroughly about her index and middle fingers while she bites her lip and her breathing hitches. He nails are very short and smooth, and he tries not to think about why. He gives her a wicked smile as he releases her and she gives him that _you’re in trouble_ look.

 _Oh, really?_ he returns.

Wetting her lips, she presses her middle finger to d’Artagnan, who gasps, and he sees her face change, slackening as she sinks into him, her faint moan twining with his louder one. Athos waits to let her explore a little, then starts to lick again, hearing d’Artagnan respond, feeling him push back onto her, her answering gasp.

After a while, roughly when he would have predicted, he hears him ask: “More? Please?” Grinning up at her, he wets his own finger and starts to press it in below hers. She gapes at him and he kisses her, feeling himself start to swell again as he enters that pulsing warmth.

He reaches for the smooth place that seems to excite d’Artagnan so much and circles while she mostly stays still, content to let his experience guide, then starts to use her tongue again, to muffled cries from d’Artagnan.

“Oh,” he says, after a while, “please, um, can you…” they wait. “It’s a bit much without, um…”

“Sorry,” she says, and very slowly withdraws, then goes to fetch a cloth to wipe her finger, though in truth there’s nothing to see.

Athos kisses his trembling buttock and withdraws likewise, accepting the cloth from Constance when she offers it. He licks d’Artagnan very gently, almost apologetically.

D’Artagnan turns over and half-props himself to look over at them. His hair is all over his flushed face and she pounces to kiss him. Athos rises more slowly and trails his hand up d’Artagnan’s body, squeezing a little along the way, then lowering himself beside him to share kisses.

D’Artagnan’s body jerks a little and they move back. “I need to… sit up.” He sits up. “I need to stand, I think.” They watch him stand, and breathe deeply, facing away from them, fists clenched.

Athos thinks he might understand. “Just take your time,” he says. “We’ll be here.”

“All right.” He paces to the door and back again. They can hear him breathing.

Constance looks at Athos in consternation. “Should we…?”

“D’Artagnan,” he tell him, “you need to slow yourself down, not speed up.”

He comes to a shuddering halt. “Um. All right.”

“Sit down, and just breathe; everything’s all right.”

“Yes,” he says, already starting to slow. “Yes, it is.”

He smiles at them then, and they can see he’s coming back. “No need,” he says, softly, one eyebrow quirking, “for you two to stop, though.”

“ _Really?_ ” asks Constance.

“Yes,” he says, “really. Please,” and sits himself, cross-legged, in a corner of the bed, back to the bedpost.

They check gently a couple more times, and he does sounds like he needs this, so she turns to Athos and they start to kiss. Both are intending to be slow and tender, a calming influence, which they are at first, but there’s so much sensation waiting for them; their gasps and shuffles quickly become humming, writhing, moaning, rocking. Athos is fully erect again, and she is slowly flushing over her whole body, nipples straining to be touched. D’Artagnan, watching, feels warmth start to settle in him again, his heartbeat slowing, the prickle of his skin subsiding, his lungs really fill. _It’s like a mêlée_ , he decides. _Sometimes it’s too much to take in and fear rises, makes everything too loud. Well, I know about how to handle that_.

He crawls forward to them, lays a hand on Constance’s back. She turns immediately, smiles at the look on his face, and reaches out to hug him. He reaches across the pair of them, kisses her; pulls Athos towards him over her shoulder and kisses him, feels everything fall into place inside him. He moves down her body slowly, kissing and stroking as he goes, intent on tasting her again.

Athos kisses her shoulder and neck, and she turns her head so he can kiss her mouth. D’Artagnan reaches her mound and starts to kiss her there, and she feels her thighs aching to spread to him, though the angle’s a little awkward. She feels Athos reach around her waist, then he’s turning and she’s lying back on him, feeling his bracing warmth at her back, his fingers on her breasts, d’Artagnan between her legs.

She moans, starts to rock towards him, hears a strangled grunt from Athos.

“Oh!” she says. “Are you all right?”

“Mmmh. I, er, didn’t think this all the way through…”

She has to laugh. D’Artagnan sniggers. “Get comfortable,” he says.

“Er.”

He smiles. “Constance, can you raise yourself a little?”

Puzzled, she hoists her hips a little, helped by Athos, feels d’Artagnan’s hand shift beneath her, hears Athos gasp. “I’m going to move him between your legs, Constance. Is that all right?”

She feels something a little like fear and a lot like lust dart through her. She nods. “Mm-hm,” not trusting her voice too well.

“Athos?”

“Yes, if. Constance, I swear… you’re safe.”

“I know. I trust you.”

She feels movement, and then his warmth is settled along her cleft. Dear God. “I swear,” he says again, on rather a groan, “on my life that I will go no further.” He pauses. “Unless you beg me to…”

She lowers her weight gently. “Well, I, oh, I asked for… for that, didn’t I?”

Oh, God, he feels so good against her.

Oh, God, she feels so good against him.

Then they both whimper as d’Artagnan starts to lap, his tongue sliding between them. Athos’s fingers contract against her hips and they both writhe. D’Artagnan moves around and over them, focusing on one then the other, and every so often Athos is sliding directly against her, that dipping, flaring texture catching just, _just_ , oh, there _, there_ … She can feel him trembling beneath her, knows that, if either of them shift angle even slightly, he’d be inside her.

_There’s no coming back from that, Musketeer._

D’Artagnan’s tongue presses his shaft against her and she grinds, groaning, against it, knowing that the angle is wrong, still, God, so, God, so good. Her mouth knows _exactly_ how he’d feel inside her.

Athos’s teeth grind and he luxuriates in the warm, rolling weight of her on him even as he does everything in his power to hold back, fuck, God, his fingers know _exactly_ how she’d feel around him.

 _Does d’Artagnan_ want _this?_

“Wait,” he says, “w-wait.”

She whimpers, clenches herself still. He can feel moisture running freely between them, feels his jaw tighten again. D’Artagnan’s terrible mouth moves from them. “Yes?”

“This. This is _my_ fantasy, you artful bugger. The other way around!”

“Oh. Oh, sorry!”

“Constance, um, do you mind swapping?”

“Er. Er, no?”

A little wriggling and she’s safely bestowed on her fiancé’s body, and he can both breathe easier and fulfill something he’s heard echoed in his head ever since telling them his desire, what seems like long weeks ago. And Christ, it’s everything he could have wished - the taste of them, the heat, the scent; all of it arrowing up into his brain and down into his core. He moans against them, and they grind back onto his tongue. Dear God, no wonder d’Artagnan is this hard, _fuck_.

And he’s pushing them together now, feeling d’Artagnan’s flesh dip back into hers, hearing her make the most amazing sounds - desperate and aroused, and then she lifts herself just that fraction, and d’Artagnan tilts his hips beneath her and he’s feeling.

Oh, fuck, he’s feeling them. They.

“Oh! Oh God!” She lifts herself higher, and d’Artagnan’s angling himself upwards, clinging to her hips to thrust and fuck, fuck, yes, he’s buried inside her.

He bends his head to them, starts to lick and kiss at their conjoining and she starts to shake, God. God, yes.


	11. Benedicamus Domino

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which ultimate desires are made manifest.

D’Artagnan bites his lip, prays to be able to sustain as he feels the waves start to roll through her, feels Athos’s tongue against him, against _them_ , and, by some miracle, holds himself back by a hair’s breadth until she grips hard against him, cries out, nearly falls backwards, his hand rising to meet her, pressing to the middle of her shoulderblades.

“I’ve got you,” he keeps saying. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

“I can’t! My legs, I can’t.”

He pushes gently. “Go forward. Athos will catch you.” He’s amazed at how steady his voice is, her still clutching around him. He feels as though he’s crested, but also knows he hasn’t spent himself, and there’s a deep throb echoing through him that he refuses to examine too strongly in case it either vanishes or overwhelms him.

He knows what he wants, what he needs now.

In the end, Athos lifts her off him bodily, and she, giggling, manages to bring her leg around without kicking anyone anywhere vital. She puddles sideways on the bed, saying “Carry on without me, chaps. I’ll be there in a moment,” in what sounds like a mannered impersonation of the King, or possibly Aramis.

He kneels up and, catching Athos by the shoulders, kisses him deeply. Athos responds greedily until d’Artagnan pulls back and says: “And what about your promise to _me?_ ” Athos looks puzzled and alarmed. “In the inn, the night before Châtillon.”

Athos’s eyes narrow, and Constance says: “Oooh. Whawasih?”

“You said that you were going to fuck me…” She gasps.

“… from below,” he finishes, slowly. “Yes.” A smile grows on him. “That’s what you want?”

“God. _Yes_.”

He pulls him forward to kiss him again, and their hands start to rove wildly over each other. A thump comes comes from beside them and they turn to see Constance on her feet, nodding to them and then striding, somewhat unsteadily, to the door.

“Wh-”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Athos pushes his tongue deep into his mouth, pulls out a little, then back in. He moans tight around the sliding heat, desire rising hot and rapid, Athos’s arm going hard around his back to crush them together, pulling back to bite his lower lip. He knows exactly, now, how to help shift d’Artagnan’s mood entirely.

Hot on the tail of that thought comes Athos’s fist in his hair, pulling him back so he can mouth his neck. He whimpers, rocks against him, feeling his hardness, hearing his breath come harsh and heavy.

Constance watches them grind on each other, d’Artagnan’s head pulled back, facial expression deliciously lost. She has in her hand his small bottle of oil and a fresh cloth, and she wonders whether her body heat will be enough, or whether she should put the bottle next to the fire for a little. And then Athos is releasing him, and mounting the bed to lie back on it, summoning d’Artagnan up to, dear God, to straddle his face.

D’Artagnan can feel himself shaking as he kneels astride him. They’ve never done it quite like this before, and Constance watching is… something else. He looks down into Athos’s face; the eyes that meet his are very calm, but the tongue that comes up to find him and the hands that clutch him are anything but. The sensations melting up through him from where his tongue lashes him are heavier, more powerful than usual, edged with everything else he’s feeling, a potent mix that has him groaning within moments, leaning forward to prop himself against the wall.

Watching, wide-eyed, clutching the bottle in her left, she slides her right hand down, finds herself wet and swollen. Then she sees Athos beckoning. She scrambles onto the bed with alacrity, watches him continue to clutch, to rock him across his tongue, then tilt him so that he can mouth his balls. At the same time, his fingers are parting d’Artagnan and she understands, quickly slicking the fingers of her left hand.

“D’Artagnan,” she hears him say, quite levelly, “Constance is going to help get you ready. Is that all right with you?”

“Oh, yes. If, if she wa-”

“Yes, I do.” She hears her voice shake, presses her middle finger to him, hears him gasp, swallows her nerves and slides inside, feeling that quivering warmth - familiar-unfamiliar - envelope her again. Soon enough, one by one and check by affirmation, she has three inside him, him now higher on his knees, bent forward over Athos to hold himself higher. The feeling of pumping into him, filling him, _possessing_ him, is intoxicating in a way she would never have suspected.

Oh God. Her hand is smoother, softer, smaller, but no less direct. She is driving into him harder than he would have expected, if he’d allowed himself to imagine this. He throws his head back, eyes rolling shut, gathers her into himself. And then he looks down, and Athos is waiting for him to be ready.

“Tell us what you want, d’Artagnan,” he says, calm, commanding.

“Oh,” he says, rocking back onto her hand with a whimper, “oh, I want to feel you fill me. Fuck. Fuck, yes.”

“Tell us more.”

“I want… ohhh… I want your cock inside me. I w-want you to, to fuck me.”

She feels something loosen and tighten in her at these words.

“Constance,” says Athos, still in control, “I’ll need you to help me just a bit further.”

“Of course.”

“I need you to put some oil on me now.”

“D’Artagnan, I need to withdraw from you so that I can do that.”

“Yes, yes,” with a kind of descending, almost mourning tone.

“Kiss me,” says Athos, quietly, as she starts to withdraw, as gently as she can, feeling that pulsing tightness snap back. D’Artagnan moves back so that his mouth can reach Athos’s. She pours a generous amount of oil onto the palm of her hand, strokes it down and around Athos, revelling in the heat and hardness of him, the way he pushes into her grip. D’Artagnan’s hips are very close now and, without being asked, she guides Athos to him, hears them both moan, watches d’Artagnan start to push back slowly onto him, pulsing his hips so that Athos is nudging against him, each time a little deeper, a little firmer…

And now, wiping her hand absently, she is watching, dear Christ, watching Athos start to properly disappear inside him, a great groan coming from both their throats.

Athos feels that tightness part around him, that heat engulf him, watches d’Artagnan lean back, take him, slowly and inexorably, deep inside, feels his eyelids shutter, forces them open. His fingers clench in the bedclothes as his hips arch up to close the final half-inch. D’Artagnan is looking at him a little wildly now, and he reaches up instinctively to touch his chest with his right hand, help him balance.

“Lean forward again,” says Constance, softly. “Just enough so that he can thrust into you. So you can… Oh God, yes…”

He obeys, leaning his weight a little on Athos’s bracing hand, feeling that impossible hardness slide deep within him, touching the edges of his endurance.

And Athos pushes up into him again, moving as slowly and gently as he can, wanting this to last, oh God, he wants this to last. D’Artagnan groans with each stroke, and he can feel everything pulsing and clutching around him. He knows he should be trying to find that spot that makes his lover squirm and throb, to push against it with the head of his cock, but it’s all he can do not to just pound into him. He’ll let d’Artagnan find his own rhythm and angle, he decides, with the small part of his brain that’s still capable of any thought.

He sees Constance watching, mouth slack and… oh, and her fingers busy on herself. Christ, what a sight that is! D’Artagnan moans as he thickens a little inside him. He stretches upwards to kiss him, losing depth for a moment, feeling d’Artagnan writhe, gasping, on him before settling back again.

Oh God, thinks D’Artagnan, this is even better than he thought it would be. And, while part of him wants Athos to be fucking him hard and wild and loud, this… this is.

Fulfilling. Yes. Yes, that’s the word. Yes. Oh, fuck, yes, “Mmmmh! Mmmh! Don’t stop fucking me, please.”

“I. I don’t intend. I. God, that feels so good. _God!_ ”

“Mmmmh!”

They turn to look at her, d’Artagnan’s eyes widening. “Jesu, that’s beautiful. Please, come… come further up here so, s-so we can see, see you better.”

She does, kneels there next to them, right hand busy at her nub, left on her breast, smearing a renegade gloss of oil across her skin. Her eyes roll back and she spreads her knees further so that she can plunge hard into herself, rocking.

“Fuck,” say d’Artagnan, moving a little faster at the sight and sound of this, hand moving to cup himself. “Fuck.” He has found the exact angle so that he can rock backward while Athos thrusts into him, hitting _that_ spot inside him over and over.

“Come here, Constance,” says Athos, voice ragged. “Let me take you in my mouth.” She stares at him, fingers a blur. “Please?”

She grins at that, then bites her lip hard, eyes rolling, rocking onto her hand and crying out, the other going out to grip d’Artagnan by the shoulder as she feels her legs weaken, the core of her shouting for sheer joy.

Breathing hard, balance spoiled, she withdraws and bends to kiss Athos, feels that restraint building in his chest again. She pulls back to see the desperation in his eyes, begging her again. “God, yes,” she say. Carefully, she straddles his mouth, facing d’Artagnan, to whom she offers the fingers that have just been inside her, and he suckles at them greedily as Athos groans beneath her.

And now they’re all rocking together, Constance and d’Artagnan kissing, moaning, Athos buried in both of them, groaning in a kind of anguished delight, now pumping faster into d’Artagnan, tongue busy on Constance, clutching her hips as she dances on him. Her hand, slickened with her own juices still, is frantic on d’Artagnan, stroking, squeezing, moaning to feel him expand in her grip, moaning to feel the clever, hungry tongue beneath her, moaning at d’Artagnan’s busy fingers - one hand on her breast and… oh fucking Christ, the other at her nub so that she rocks between him and Athos, light swelling in every part of her now, unstoppable. D’Artagnan feels like he’s coming undone, that he’s filled with joy to the brim of his capacity, that there is no part of his body not giving and receiving pleasure with each roll, thrust, kiss, or breath.

The bed is squeaking and rattling, everyone is close now, shouting their various joyful salutations and exaltations to a range of sainted beings, and happy warnings to each other as, in a cascade of sheer ecstasy, they quiver into climax, ride that for a timeless, exultant, shining moment before subsiding, panting, hearts galloping, leaning on each other with gasps of pulsing delight and incredulity.


	12. Ite, missa est

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we say adieu. For now.

“Well,” said Constance.

“Yes,” said d’Artagnan.

“Hmm,” said Athos.

They were lying in Constance’s bed, having cleaned themselves up as much as they could in the circumstances, counterpane stripped and dumped on the floor. The men had sworn a solemn oath to her that they would wash themselves properly before the next day’s ceremony.

“After all, he _is_ the King…” d’Artagnan had said with a twinkle, earning him a rap on the arm.

“And you’ll still…” she’d said to Athos.

“Of course,” he’d told her gravely, pausing in his rough ablutions, “you know I’d be honoured.” The smile that had bloomed between them was a low-banked warmth, and they’d all basked in it for a moment, a reflection of the sun-blessed day to come.

And here they were now, Athos with one hand behind his neck, the other curved around Constance, who had her head on his chest, one arm sprawled backwards across his torso, her other hand caressing d’Artagnan’s head, which lay on her lap, his hand under her canted thigh, the other on Athos’s upraised knee, his legs tangled companionably with Athos’s, all of them gazing up at the canopy above them.

“This would be nice,” said d’Artagnan, “under a tree somewhere; birds singing, sun coming through the leaves to tickle us.”

“Tickle?”

“Oh, you know…”

They did.

“We’d have to wait until Spring,” said Constance, already cursing herself for that inevitable pragmatism.

“May,” said Athos, decisively. “Afternoon. Not too hot, but the ground warmed through, and a low, sweet breeze.”

The others sighed. “Yes,” said Constance, dreamily.

“I’ll remind you of this, come May,” said d’Artagnan.

“No you won’t,” the others chorused.

“No,” he said. “You’ll have planned it out with military precision between you, three weeks beforehand.”

“Maybe,” said Athos.

“It’s a pity,” said d’Artagnan, slowly, “that we don’t know anyone with a great, big house out in the country…”

Athos just sighed and squeezed him between his thighs briefly in remonstrance, while Constance prodded his head with a forefinger before returning to stroking it.

“Fire’s nearly gone out,” said Athos after a while.

“It really hasn’t,” said Constance, and they both twisted their head to see each other smiling. D’Artagnan gave her leg a quick press and nuzzled into her some more.

They all gazed upwards again.

“What time is it?” he asked, after a while.

“I have absolutely no idea,” drawled Athos

“And no desire to find out…”

“It’s still…” she peered, gave up… “I think there’s plenty of dark yet.”

“What time are we meeting the King?”

“Full regalia, remember?” prompted Athos.

“Yes, but _when?_ ”

“Nine,” they chorused.

“A- Her Majesty will need a _lot_ of dressing for that,” she added in a calculating voice.

“Do you _really_ …” began d’Artagnan until he was squeezed again.

“We agreed,” said Athos, quietly.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“That’s all right. And yes: I really help to dress her, along with about three maids on occasions like this. And yes: I really still call her Anne. On occasion.”

“On _special_ occasions,” smirked d’Artagnan, with a waggle of eyebrows that got him prodded in several places

He wriggled. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Truce!”

“Hah!”

“Seriously,” he said, and he sounded serious, “I’m. Constance, I’m really sorry for how I was about that, back… back when I found out.”

She was silent for a while, then said: “That means a lot, actually. Thank you for saying it.”

“I worry.”

“Of course you do. I would. You know, if I found out you were having an affair with Rochefort or… _ow!_ ” He’d pinched her thigh.

“Killed him,” he plunged upward with an imaginary sword. “Remember?”

“We all helped,” said Athos, mildly.

“It didn’t feel good, though.”

“No,” he said, gently, “but it was _right_.”

“Happy as I am that we’ve brought the dead Comte into our bed…”

“You _literally_ started it, Constance.”

“No, _you_ started it when you…”

“Oh, hush.”

“No.”

Athos chuckled, and the others, startled out of their comfortable bicker by the sound they loved all the more for its rarity, hummed and snuggled into him.

“I love you,” said d’Artagnan, quietly.

“I love you,” said Constance.

“I love you,” said Athos, and they all closed their eyes for a sweet, drifting moment.

_Always._

“Anyone else hungry?” asked Constance after a while.

“Oh God, starving.”

“Famished,” said Athos.

“Let’s fix that,” she said, and they all smiled. Ready to get up and go in a minute. Any moment now. Just as soon as…

Well.

*  *  *

The Dauphin sleeps, warm and fed, dreaming dreams of exploration.

The Queen sleeps, satisfied, dreaming dreams of peace at last.

The King sleeps, exhausted, dreaming of plots.

*  *  *

In a cold grave, the Comte de Rochforte lies, hastily buried and barely mourned; alone.

In an inn halfway to the Spanish border, Vargas composes a letter with great care. There are some delicate questions outstanding.

In the dark of a disreputable building, some unscrupulous people we haven’t met yet are making plans.

Milady Clarick de Winter, Anne de Breuil; spy, assassin, thief, whore, mistress and creature of fortune, has left strict orders that she is to be awoken before dawn, all made ready; a dazzling outfit awaits her and whoever might accompany her to England.

*  *  *

In the mess of the Musketeer garrison, two firm friends throw a little wood on the fire and explore new truths, about themselves and each other, consider the respective weights of secrets and kisses.

And we… pull back, take a broader, longer view, leave lovers, children, monarchs, manipulators, and friends, for now, to enter the next chapter as this one closes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eight weeks and some 118k words later, it’s done. I have my eye on some one-shots (mostly follow-ups to stories hinted in this work - and yes, I _will_ be taking requests. I don’t know how you can do that except write in the comments here, but I will honour them to the best of my ability (even if theredwagon insists on the [Rochefort/ LaBarge fic](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/154491621) which… _WHY?!_ )). However, the main, planned arc of this series is now done.
> 
> It just remains to thank everyone who’s commented so far and who does so in the future, especially the much-beloved [theredwagon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredwagon), [Thimblerig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig), and [Hsg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hsg), who have been in on this since the [very beginning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13679385?show_comments=true&view_full_work=true#comments). I honestly don’t know how I’d have written a long novel’s-worth of work in fifty-six days (for the pedants among you: I finished the final writing work on 11th April, I’ve just continued with the chapter-by-chapter daily posting schedule in the meantime) without your support and encouragement. Scratch that: _if_ I’d have written anything further than the first work. Anyway, yeah - you lot. Thanks. [blushes furiously]
> 
> Right then. I’m off to take a long walk and… maybe take care of some business…


End file.
